The Untold Story
by Genevastar
Summary: The story of what might have happened off-screen during Series 7. Anything from my imagination belongs to me, the rest to the BBC and Kudos.
1. Chapter 1

___Lucas's reinstatement to Section D happened very quickly on screen. I have slightly expanded the timeline._

_THE UNTOLD STORY_

_CHAPTER ONE_

Without even looking at the clock I knew what time it was. Legend has it that troubled sleepers always wake at four a.m. Not yours truly. In my case it was always twenty minutes either side of two in the morning. That was the hour they picked for random interrogations; when all of us used to be woken by the clanging of doors and the bawling of drunken guards. Everyone had the same reaction – cringing in the darkness, heart pounding, silently praying that the thud of boots would stop outside someone else's cell. Compassion and selflessness don't last long in a Russian prison.

So I wasn't surprised that when my own shouts of terror woke me the alarm clock was showing 02.17. I'd been thrashing around like a windmill in a hurricane, and the sheet, damp and sticky with sweat, had wrapped itself around me so tightly that I could hardly move. That just made the panic worse; I'd seen guards bury prisoners' bodies that had been carelessly wrapped in a dirty sheet.

I tore myself free of it, ripping the fabric in the process, and threw the window open. The air was freezing, but I didn't care. During eight years in Russia I'd necessarily become accustomed to the cold. Anyway, freezing or not, it was air, and air was what I craved.

The room was spinning, and as I slumped on the edge of the bed I almost lost my balance. I lowered my head to get the blood back into it and it started to throb instead. _Shit._ This was all I needed, with my initial debriefing due to begin today. I'd been pestering Harry to get it started; as long as the process wasn't complete, I knew I wouldn't be formally cleared to return to Section D. Harry's admonitions to me to 'take your time, you're exhausted' might have been sincere, probably were, but I couldn't shake the fear that he was using them as an excuse to justify delaying my reinstatement. Logically, I knew that after eight years' detention I wasn't going to be able to just waltz back in and pick up the threads of my career where they'd been so brutally ripped apart. The Service was bound to have doubts about my loyalty and my state of mind, not to mention my physical condition. I hadn't seen a mirror in years, and now I could barely recognise my own scrawny, drawn, sunken-eyed reflection. Even _I _wasn't sure I looked fit to return to duty, so I understood Harry's doubts. At the same time, I was desperate for the reassurance that being officially recommissioned as an MI-5 officer would give me. I'd been floundering for what seemed like eternity, clutching at every tiny straw that would give me the strength to get through another endless day, until the chain of them stretched so far I couldn't remember where it had started, or believe that it would ever come to an end. I needed the stability that the anchor of belonging to the Service again would give me. Until I had that within my grasp, I knew I was doomed to fighting the pull of the tide of nightmares and flashbacks dragging me back to Russia.

Knowing that any attempt to go back to sleep was likely to be unsuccessful, I wandered into the kitchen. It took me a moment to find what I needed to make coffee. Visiting the supermarket since my return had been a nightmare that was reflected in the cupboards. My idea of the cost of things was eight years out of date, and being denied the right to take even the smallest decision for so long meant that I'd been utterly overwhelmed by the huge range of products available and quite unable to make any rational choice anyway. Malcolm, bless him, had come with me the second time and made sure that I bought the necessities and had sufficient money with me to do so.

I took a mug of coffee and a packet of chocolate biscuits into the living room. I never used to have a sweet tooth, but since my release from Russia I'd been eating biscuits, chocolate and cake to excess. I sat down on the floor with my back against the sofa. I still couldn't get used to soft, cosy chairs. Most nights the comfort of the bed defeated me too, and I ended up sleeping on the hard floor that I'd got used to in prison. I switched on the TV. An old episode of 'Poirot' was showing. It was comforting to see a programme I actually remembered, and the murmur of voices took the edge off the silence. After the endless days and weeks in solitary, I'd developed a need for the sound of the human voice as intense as any of my fellow-inmates had for drugs and alcohol. Harry was concerned that I would find debriefing difficult, but I'd been looking forward to it – not only because it would be my gateway to returning to the Service, but because I longed to be able to tell him about what I'd been through during the years of my captivity. For one thing, I wanted his sympathy – God knows, I felt I'd earned it! – but paradoxically, I also wanted him to know what I'd had to endure, and to feel guilty for his share of the responsibility for it. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose. Either way I wanted, and desperately _needed_ to talk to him.

So it had been a shock to learn that one of his senior case officers, a woman called Myers, rather than Harry himself, would be handling at least the start of the debriefing. Harry hadn't been willing to tell me much about her, so I'd turned to Malcolm again and discovered that she was the woman who'd taken control of the Remembrance Day operation after Adam Carter's death. It seemed she was now chief of Section D.

The news had unsettled me. Some of my worst interrogations had been at the hands of a female FSB officer as brutal as any of her male colleagues, and the last thing I wanted was to be debriefed by another woman. All right, I knew that no MI-5 officer would be allowed to conduct herself in _that_ way, but still. All I could recall of this one was a fleeting impression of a competent, snappy whippet of a woman in a leather jacket and jeans. I'd tried to elicit information from Malcolm, but he'd been hesitant and evasive. At last he'd muttered something about Ms Myers being '_tough … I suppose you'd call her a hard nut.' _He'd uttered the last two words with distaste, as if they were the verbal equivalent of picking up something slimy. My face must have shown something, because he'd added hastily, '_But she's very good, Lucas. And completely unbiased.'_

I wasn't reassured. I didn't need someone 'completely unbiased'. I needed someone sympathetic and understanding. It didn't sound to me as if Ms Myers fitted the bill. And I couldn't help wondering – if she was Section Chief, where would that leave me, even if I _were_ reinstated? Eight years ago I'd known, without any false modesty, that Harry had been grooming me to fill that post one day. I had no idea what my status might be now. I wondered what had happened to Tom Quinn, who surely would have been an automatic choice to become Section Chief once I was otherwise occupied as prisoner 56711. Harry's assertion that he had 'taken early retirement' didn't ring true, but he obviously didn't trust me enough yet to offer me the real reason for Tom's departure.

_Trust._ It was the biggest obstacle standing between me, and the resumption of my career in Section D. But re-building that trust was a two-way process. My trust in Harry had been absolute … once. I trusted him when he sent me to Moscow, and when everything went so terribly wrong I trusted him to get me released and bring me home.

I didn't trust him that way now, not after he and the Service callously left me in Russian hands for eight years. My chief tormentor at Lefortovo, Arkady Kachimov, had loved to remind me that Harry didn't seem particularly eager to have me back. Although I knew that his periodic little jabs on the matter were designed to lay a feeling of emotional solitude on top of my physical isolation, there was no getting away from the fact that I _was_ alone and, apparently, abandoned. As the years dragged by his needles penetrated deep under my skin and lodged there. By the time I was hauled from the boot of that car and handed over, I mistrusted Harry almost more than I did Kachimov. I had hoped that once I had talked to him I would be able to start rebuilding the old relationship of confidence and friendship I'd had with him in the past and valued so much. We _knew_ each other; Harry would understand. Except that now I wasn't going to be sharing the details of my ordeal with Harry but with the unknown quantity of Ms Whatever-her-name-was Myers.

I took another biscuit and dipped it into my coffee. What the hell had she said her name was? Something unlikely. I remember thinking that it didn't suit her. Rebecca? Rowena … no. Something Shakespearian. I concentrated. Rosamund - no, Rosalind. Rosalind, that was it. Something wrong there! To me, 'Rosalind' conjured up the quintessential English rose in a Laura Ashley dress. Not the severe-looking woman I'd met so briefly – curt, assured, and crisply snapping orders to armed men twice her size. She'd barely batted an eyelash when I told her Adam Carter was dead. Turned white and gone very still for a couple of seconds, yes, but the instant the cavalry arrived she'd taken over command without so much as a flicker of emotion. More like Rambo than Rosalind.

_You're getting fanciful. And sleepy._ I looked at my watch. Maybe it _was _worth trying to get at least a couple of hours rest. I wouldn't do much to impress Ms Rosalind 'Hard Nut' Myers by dozing off during the debriefing. I went back into the bedroom. The sheet was beyond immediate repair – by me, at least – so I took the blanket and settled on the carpet in the living room. With the little Belgian muttering into my ear about order and method, and the familiarity of an unyielding floor beneath me I drifted back to sleep.

oOoOoOo

I had been instructed to be at Thames House by ten, so I made sure I was there by nine-thirty. Security wasn't very happy with my temporary access card, and it took a further check call to Harry before I was admitted. When I emerged from the pods Ms Myers was waiting for me.

"Mr North." I thought she smiled, but it was so fleeting that I could well have been mistaken. She extended her hand; it was slender and pale, with well-manicured nails, and bore no rings. "My name's Rosalind Myers. We met on Remembrance Day."

"Yes." I shook her hand and added, somewhat unnecessarily, "Lucas North." She had some of the coldest eyes I had ever seen; a mossy green like the Russian steppes in spring, and I could feel them appraising me. I decided to take the initiative. "Is Harry around?"

"Not at the moment." I waited, but she added nothing further. "Shall we get started? I've had coffee sent in. Would you follow me, please?"

She walked briskly off down the corridor, leaving me with little choice but to follow. I made my own appraisal on the way. She was slightly built, but obviously very fit. Both her carriage and her expression oozed self-confidence, and did little to bolster mine. She stopped at a plain metal door, and was just sliding her ID card into the reader when an attractive young woman with very short bleached blonde hair came hurrying round the corner.

"Ros! Ros, Ben's latest report's ready."

I watched her thin lips tighten in annoyance. "Then deal with it, Jo. Unless he's about to join the Taliban I don't want to be disturbed for the next two hours. They did train you to take independent decisions, didn't they?"

Without another word, she turned away and opened the door. The girl glanced at me. She was scarlet with embarrassment, and I gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile.

"Mr North?" Rosalind Myers was tapping her foot impatiently. "If you're quite ready?"

I rolled my eyes at the younger woman, who hurriedly hid a smile as she moved off. I turned back to Ms Myers. She gestured me into the room, and as she followed, I heard the door hiss shut.

"Take a seat, please." She was already moving to the table, but when she turned and saw that I hadn't moved, both her expression and her voice hardened. "Mr North, take a seat."

I swallowed. My mouth was dry and I could feel my heart beating too fast. The room was small, spartan, and windowless. And Rosalind Myers was the only one able to open the door. I blew out a long, slow breath and made myself walk to the table, conscious of her watching me closely as she poured two cups of coffee from a thermos flask. I didn't want to start this by demonstrating weakness, so I forced the memories back. _You're not in Moscow now. _She wasn't about to strap me down and let the gorillas loose. And I had a mobile, a way of contacting the outside world. I wasn't trapped. The Grid was only a few feet away.

"Is something wrong?" she enquired.

"No," I lied. I pulled out a chair and sat down. She raised her eyebrows and passed me a cup. My hands were unsteady, and the spoon tinkled betrayingly in the saucer. She said nothing, but we both knew that she'd seen and noted it. Without comment she took the other chair, and, sitting on the edge of it with her back ramrod straight, flicked open the file she had been carrying with her.

"Lucas Simon North." I nodded. "Sent to Moscow in March 2000 to make contact with an MI-5 asset in the GRU."

"Yes." I kept my eyes on that impassive face to avoid having to look at the smooth, featureless walls sealing us in on all four sides. "On 23rd March, to be exact."

Rosalind Myers consulted the file and nodded. "When were you picked up?"

"Four days later," I answered. "Late at night near _Khrista Spasitelya_, by an FSB snatch squad."

Another nod. "Very well." She picked up a pen and held it poised. "Tell me what happened."

oOoOoOo

She grilled me for two hours before she called a break for lunch. By then I was exhausted and fighting a headache. Rosalind Myers's conduct had changed not one iota; she remained attentive, composed, impeccably polite, and those chilly green eyes rarely moved from my face. I had to admit she was a damned good interrogator – intelligent, thorough, and persistent. By the end of two hours she had taken copious notes in a personal shorthand that I couldn't read, although I'd caught Ms Myers giving a sardonic smile when she saw me trying to.

"OK," she said crisply, slapping the file closed. "Let's take an hour for lunch." She got to her feet, and I rose with her. "You know where the cafeteria is?"

"Yes. Unless they've moved it." My little quip produced no reaction whatsoever. She slipped her card through the reader again and opened the door. Then she looked at me.

"Did you suffer from claustrophobia before Russia, Mr North?"

I wondered if the insistence on formality was to emphasise that I wasn't – yet – what I so desperately wanted to be, a fully-fledged member of Section D. On the Grid we'd always called each other by our first names; everyone did, right from day one. I shook my head.

"No. It developed there, in prison."

She nodded. "You did well to control it." Her tone was completely devoid of warmth; it was a statement of fact, not a compliment. "See you back here in an hour." I stood there and watched her walk away, and then went to the nearby lavatory. When I got back to the Grid I glimpsed her blonde hair in Harry's office. _Making her report._ Harry was seated at his desk, listening intently. He met my eyes for a second as I went past the office window, and raised a hand. I did likewise and continued to the pods. I could still feel Rosalind Myers's gaze burning the back of my neck as they decanted me out of the Grid.

oOoOoOo

The cafeteria was busy, noisy, and on the fourth floor with a view over the city. I carried my tray to a table by the window and for a moment, just sat staring out of it, drinking in the range of the view, the breadth of the sky, and blessing whoever had opened a window to let in the crisp air that swirled around the back of my neck.

"Hi, can I join you?" I looked up, startled, to see the young woman whose head Rosalind Myers had almost bitten off. She had large eyes that looked almost violet, and they were smiling warmly at me. The contrast with the steel-eyed gaze of her colleague was startling.

"Sure." I smiled back and moved my tray along to give her space. "Lucas North."

She beamed. "Yeah, I know. I'm Jo Portman." Without ceremony she began to make inroads into a large salad. "You survived, then?"

"So far," I said, carefully. "Early days." Given what had happened downstairs it didn't seem very likely that Ms Myers had sent this girl as a _stukach_ (the Russian word came without thinking, the English equivalent escaped me), but I wasn't taking any chances.

She chuckled. "You'll be fine. Her bark's a lot worse than her bite, really."

"Rosalind's?" I enquired, disingenuously.

"Yeah. Ros. We all call her Ros." Jo wrinkled her nose. "She doesn't like Rosalind. Too girly, I think. Harry only ever calls her Rosalind when he's angry with her."

She was being very open. I glanced warily around us. Something told me that Rosalind Myers wouldn't enjoy being talked about.

"Don't worry," Jo said brightly. "She never comes in here. Goes out or takes a sandwich or something up to the roof. She might have to _talk_ to people if she ate with the rest of us. You know, chat and have a laugh. Not really Ros's strong point."

_I'll bet it isn't._ I started eating. "Bit of a loner, is she?"

Jo nodded. "Delete 'bit of'. Work's what matters to Ros. I don't think she's really interested in people." She looked thoughtful. "Except Adam." She looked intently at me. "Did _you_ know Adam?"

"No. I only met him when I came back. Did you?"

She nodded vigorously, although there was sadness in her eyes. "I joined MI-5 because of him. He recruited me." She went quiet for a moment. "It seems so odd without him around. I miss him. I suppose Ros must too, even more than the rest of us, but she never shows it."

The words puzzled me. "Why more than the rest of you?"

Jo Portman hesitated. "Well, she – she and Adam … they were an item, so …" She trailed off. I ate for a moment without speaking, recalling Ros Myers's reaction when I'd told her of Adam Carter's death. Surely no woman who really _loved_ the man could have shown so little emotion. And besides, from my brief two encounters with Adam I couldn't imagine an unlikelier pairing. He had been warm, impulsive, and gregarious. I thought I'd sensed a streak of recklessness, too. What on earth he'd seen in that cold, remote, emotionless woman with whom I'd spent the last two hours – other than a remarkably good figure - I couldn't think.

"They're very different, aren't they?" I said, casually.

"God, yes." Jo laughed, albeit with a touch of bitterness, I thought. "Ros is pretty different from everyone. She was difficult enough when she went away. Since she's come back, well …"

"Come back?" I enquired.

"From Russia." I choked on the baked potato I'd just put into my mouth.

"Russia?" I spluttered, when I could. "What on earth was she doing there?"

For the first time, the young woman looked slightly uneasy. "Oh, I – er – I shouldn't really talk about it. I expect Harry will tell you – or she will. When you're back in the Section, I mean. You _are_ coming back?"

I smiled as disarmingly as I could. "I hope so. If I can charm Miss – Ros."

Jo giggled. "I'd practice on something easier first if I were you. Like a spitting cobra." She glanced down as her mobile beeped. "Oops, got to run. See you soon, I hope!"

_I hope so too,_ I thought as she hurried off. I finished my food deep in thought. The aura of mystery around Ros Myers was growing by the minute. Private travel to Russia was absolutely forbidden for all serving MI-5 officers for the obvious reason. So either she had also been on an operation there, or … well, there _was_ no viable alternative that I could see.

I finished eating and took a takeaway coffee back down to the Grid with me. My sixty minutes respite was passing far too quickly, and I knew that Ros intended to move on to questioning me about the 'intensive interrogation' (a twenty-first century euphemism for torture) that I'd been put through by the FSB. I wasn't entirely sure that I could face it.

_You have to try._ I'd been through worse. It was the price for returning to Thames House, and if I couldn't pay it, then all those years of fear and pain and loneliness would have been wasted. I'd effectively be handing Arkady Kachimov and his henchmen the victory they hadn't been able to beat out of me on a silver platter.

I made my way back down to the Grid, hoping I might have the chance for a word with Harry. My luck was in; when I got there he was just taking his leave of a man who had '_senior civil servant _' stamped all over his face. Harry's own wore a constipated expression, and despite myself, I smiled.

"Trouble?"

"As ever." Harry glared at the man's retreating back and then asked: "How's it going, Lucas?"

The sympathy in his voice brought a lump to my throat, but I answered as casually as I could.

"All right, I hope." I pointed discreetly towards Ros Myers, who was just emerging from the kitchen off the Grid. "But I don't know what Ros thinks."

"Very few people know what Ros thinks," Harry said wryly, neatly sidestepping the invitation in my comment. I probed again.

"I gather she was in Russia, too?"

Harry's expression warned me, too late, that my curiosity had probably dropped young Jo Portman right in it. I waited for the rebuke, but instead he sighed wearily.

"I know this is hard, Lucas. I know how much you want to be back in the saddle – and I want you back. You'll know everything in good time. Ros is an outstanding officer in every respect. I think even she'd admit she's unlikely ever to win the Most Popular Girl On The Grid award, but she's loyal, honest, and scrupulously fair. And she's not as uncaring as she seems. Trust her. And me."

I wanted to ask him why the hell I _should_ when the sentiment clearly wasn't reciprocated and when he'd betrayed mine by abandoning me for eight years, but Ros was approaching, and I bit back what would anyway have been a foolishly heated response.

"Shall we go, Mr North?" she suggested.

"Lucas." I tried to keep the edge out of my voice. "Please."

They exchanged a glance, and then Ros gave a tight smile that suggested that using the word gave her acid indigestion.

"Lucas. This way," she said, as I turned towards the corridor that we had taken that morning. "The interview room's in use this afternoon. There's an empty office up here." She strode off decisively in the other direction. I glanced at Harry, who winked at me and made a shooing gesture with his hand. Hurriedly, I chased Ros down the corridor. The office in question was small, and obviously rarely used. The air was stuffy and dust-laden, a problem that Ros was just solving by shoving the window open and letting in a chilly gust of air. I saw her shiver.

"Just for a minute, freshen it up." She turned to me and said curtly: "Sit down."

At another time I might have bristled at the arrogance in her tone and manner, but I was acutely aware that the satisfaction of snapping back at her would only be momentary. It was obvious that she and Harry were as thick as thieves, and her opinion carried weight with him. Get on the wrong side of Ros Myers, and this grubby little office could be the closest I ever got to being back on the Grid. And I was mollified by my relief at being in a room with a window and a door that could be opened simply by turning the handle. So I did as I was told, watched as she snapped an order for coffee into her mobile to some unfortunate, anonymous junior officer, and prepared to take her back to Russia for round two.

oOoOoOo


	2. Chapter 2

_CHAPTER TWO_

I was surprised when Harry told me that he wanted me to debrief Lucas North. He had a lot more experience, and he knew Lucas better; I had only just met the man, and he hadn't exactly left an indelible impression on me. Hardly surprising in the circumstances. When I told Harry as much, he shook his head.

"That's the point, Ros. I'm too close to him. You'll do a better job. It needs someone with more emotional distance."

Well, that was something I had in spades, at least according to the sour grapevine in Thames House; I was notorious for it. I still wasn't convinced that I was the best person for the job, but I didn't argue, because apart from anything else, the time and effort involved might distract me from the shock of Adam's death.

Not that I was going to admit, at least to anyone else, to _being _in shock. Harry knew, of course; any attempt that I might have made to pretend otherwise to him had been rendered null and void by losing control of myself so spectacularly in the hotel on the evening of the explosion. I still didn't know quite what had happened there. It was an almost total blank, as if someone had reached in to the data base of my memory and carefully wiped about half an hour's worth of files. I could remember leaving Harry in the bar downstairs, and had a vague recollection of a painful burning sensation somewhere in my gut as if I'd just drunk half a bottle of acid instead of red wine. Then nothing - until a frantic knocking on the door of my room as Harry burst in with the manager in tow. I'd been as stunned as they were to see myself surrounded by smashed glass, broken picture frames and shattered crockery, and when the manager asked me how the television had come to be lying on its side in the middle of the room with its screen a fine spider's web of cracks, I genuinely couldn't tell him. After a while, Harry bundled me into his coat and took me home with him. When it eventually dawned on me that _I_ was responsible for the devastation in the room I anticipated disciplinary measures, being sued, possibly being decommissioned, or any combination thereof. Nothing happened. Only much later did I learn that Harry had protected me by dropping mysterious hints about 'national security' to the manager and, probably more to the point, paying for the damage. I was still engaged in a low-level war of attrition with him to let me pay him back.

So, I agreed to do the debriefing. I read Lucas North's Service file, retrieved from the archives, noting with interest that he had been married to a Russian. The security checks alone took me an entire evening to wade through. When I discovered that Lucas's wife had divorced him two years after his capture I asked Harry if he'd been aware of it. Apparently not - Harry confirmed that he'd learnt about it only on his repatriation. That was the first time Lucas North became more to me that a name in a file; became a little more rounded and human. In a way it gave us something in common; he too had returned from Russia to the loss of someone he'd loved. When I read that Elizaveta, his ex-wife, had given birth to a child by her second husband while Lucas was still in jail, I almost caught myself feeling sorry for him, a dangerous error that I corrected instantly. 'Innocent until proven guilty' is a fine sentiment that doesn't apply in this job. MI-5 prefers 'suspect until proven clean', and I approve of that.

Harry had outlined what we needed from the debriefing – '_get as much detail as you can about where he was held, who interrogated him and how … find out how damaged he is_, _how fit to return to work,' _and then given me a free hand to decide my approach to obtaining it. The one thing he _hadn't_ mentioned was the obvious main purpose of the exercise, but he didn't need to. I knew that my principal goal was to determine whether Lucas North was still loyal or whether he had been turned by the FSB over the course of the last eight years and planted back with MI-5.

I had only a sketchy recollection of meeting him on Remembrance Sunday, and when he arrived on the Grid to start the debriefing, my first concern was whether he would be able to cope with it at all. He was still sallow and drawn, and there was sleeplessness writ large in the dark rings under his eyes. But when I looked into them, I knew instantly that he was going to be no pushover. Intelligence, wariness, and a tiny trace of hostility swirled in their depths. _And _he was sizing me up, quietly assessing how much of a challenge I represented. He had more experience of this process than I had – eight solid years of it. We both knew that I was the interrogation novice, but were equally aware that I had one great advantage over him. Harry had told me how much Lucas longed to return to MI-5 ('it's his home' was how he put it). Well, he was unlikely to do that unless he proved himself to me.

I'd expected him to be nervous - anyone would be – so it took me a while to realise that his initial apprehensiveness, quickened breathing and the occasional shivers that ran through him weren't due to fear of me or – more likely – reminders of past interrogations in Russia, but to claustrophobia induced by the interview room. It was the way he _didn't_ do what you would have expected a claustrophobic to do – keep fidgeting, looking around for a way out - that gave it away. Instead, to block out the walls around us, he kept his eyes riveted on my face as if he were hypnotised by it. I could still see the strain though, because when his panic reached a crescendo his face muscles quivered and he would clasp his hands so tightly that the veins stood out like ropes. Nonetheless, he answered my questions, and gave me the information I sought for over two hours without a murmur of protest. Despite myself, I was impressed.

Harry listened attentively to the report I made to him during the break I called for lunch. I saw North pass the office while I was doing it, and caught the quick, almost furtive glance he shot towards us. I thought I glimpsed anger, but when he saw me looking at him he stepped up his pace and hurried out of the Grid, leaving me unsure.

"He doesn't trust me, you know," I said bluntly to Harry.

"Nor me. He doesn't trust anyone," Harry said wearily. "Would you, Ros?"

"I suppose not." I glanced back at my notes. "He talks about Kachimov sometimes as if he were a favourite uncle rather than his interrogator."

"Stockholm Syndrome?" Harry suggested, giving voice to my own concerns. We both knew how very possible that was, and how dangerous it could be in intelligence terms, especially now that Arkady Kachimov was the official FSB _rezident _in London.

"Maybe. He told me how they used to talk about literature … _poetry, _would you believe. Blake, I think he said."

Harry half-smiled. "Lucas loves Blake. Always did. It's a more sophisticated way of getting information than beating a man half to death, Ros. Especially when that man's alone and cut off from anything that's familiar to him. Building bridges. Exploiting someone's vulnerabilities and their loneliness. Often very effective."

"Mm." I watched him pace. "Apparently not entirely in his case. They did turn the screws, he said. Later."

"Has he told you about it?" Harry asked.

"Not yet. I thought I'd broach it after lunch. He did say how the other prisoners used to knock him about, though. Probably at the guards' instigation. And he was the _chuzhoi._" He looked quizzical. "Sorry. The … alien. The one who doesn't fit. Not one of the gang." As I said the words I recognised another, uncomfortable similarity. I could have been describing myself as much as Lucas North.

"Yes." Harry nodded thoughtfully. "He mentioned that when I saw his tattoos. Something about '_if you don't do it, you don't belong; if you don't belong, you're dead.' "_

"I … I thought - " I hesitated.

"You thought … what?"

I told him about Lucas's discomfort in the interview room. "I thought we could use that disused office in that back corridor this afternoon." I pointed. "The old storage room."

"Thoughtful," Harry observed, although there was a touch of curiosity in his voice. He was watching me closely. Instantly, I threw the unspoken challenge back at him.

"It's just a question of efficiency. He might open up if he's more relaxed."

"Of course." I still wasn't sure that he didn't think I was going soft, but at that moment his phone rang, and I took the opportunity to go and make myself a coffee in the kitchen off the Grid. I was drinking it and thinking about Lucas when Malcolm Wynne-Jones came in.

"Oh, hello, Ros!" I murmured a reply, and he started rinsing his own mug. After a moment I heard him chuckle to himself, and looked up.

"Lucas and Harry." He pointed out into the Grid. "It's like the old days to see them chatting like that. They were so close. Lucas was Harry's protégé, you know. And he was damned good; the best we had, actually. Popular too … charmed everyone." He paused. "Do you think he's all right, Ros?"

I muttered something non-committal about thinking he would be, even as I recalled the fear and the fire, the despair and the deviousness that I'd seen chasing each other through those bright blue eyes this morning. _Loyal 'all right', truthful 'all right', stable 'all right'?_ The truth was, I didn't know. It was time to have another go at finding out.

oOoOoOo

"Shall we go, Mr North?" I invited briskly as I joined them. I saw a fleeting expression of dread cross his face, but it was gone in an instant. I allowed him his little victory over the use of his Christian name; even a tiny triumph like that can encourage someone to involuntarily drop their guard a little with their interrogator. When we were settled in the office I opened his file.

"How long was it before the FSB began to use intensive interrogation techniques on you, Lucas?"

He gulped. "Three … four months. After I'd repeatedly refused to tell them anything other than my name. They put me in solitary first for a month or so. Softening up." His voice was rough, his face taut. "Kachimov came … twice, I think. Otherwise I – spoke to no-one. Saw no-one. Not even the guards. When they brought food or – or I was taken to the showers they put a hood on."

"You were still in Lefortovo?"

He nodded. "Then, yes. The actual … torture … started a bit before New Year." He shuddered and wiped his hand across his mouth. I gave him a few seconds.

"How often?"

He had been staring at the table; now he looked up. "Every day for seventeen days without a break."

"You must have been disoriented," I said. "How can you be so sure?"

He gave an empty smile that chilled with its utter lack of mirth. "The tried and tested way. When the guards didn't bother to do their rounds at night we could sometimes communicate by tapping on the pipes. The prisoner in the next cell told me."

"Was it Kachimov who carried out the interrogations?"

"No." He shook his head. "He was never present – I mean, as far as I remember. I … sometimes I was unconscious. I might not have seen him. But he didn't question me, not during … during those sessions."

The tension was coming off him in waves, and I spoke quietly. "Who did?" No reply. "Who was it who questioned you, Lucas?"

He lifted his coffee cup, but his hand was shaking, and some of the contents spilled. I reached across and blotted it with a tissue.

"There were several. Prodin .. an Axyonov … but the main one was a captain. FSB. They called her Zoya. Zoyushka. I heard a name … once … Tukhachevskaya. I think it was her."

"What did she want from you?" I asked.

"The names of my .. my contacts. I had none to give her. The only name I had was the name of the asset and they – they knew that already. She didn't, or – or wouldn't … believe that I had no more."

_They didn't take seventeen days to reach that conclusion. _I put the thought into words. "There must have been more than that, Lucas. Why did they carry on?"

He moistened his lips. "They wanted … operational information about the Service. Staffing … policy. Details."

"Of specific operations? Did they mention any?"

He shook his head. "I'm not sure. I … I think so. But after a while it all blurred. I passed out a lot, and I was … confused by exhaustion … and the pain. There's a lot I can't remember, even now. They did mention … penetration."

I frowned. "Of the Service?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Any names?"

"Not that I recall. But they taunted me with it … hinted that – that they had assets … long-term sleepers. And they were very insistent about the community here, too. The Russian community … what links it may have had with - with MI-5. If any of their people were working for us against them."

I could see beads of sweat along his hairline, and he was very pale. Out of the blue I remembered Adam's flashbacks after the death of his wife. I didn't want to trigger one in Lucas North, but I had to get an idea of how badly he had been affected by his ordeal, and to do that, I _had_ to ask what had been done to him.

"I know this will be distressing." I was trying to be gentle and sympathetic, which didn't come naturally, and even to me the words sounded awkward and wooden. "Can you tell me what they did?"

His eyes flickered up from the table – heavy-lidded, red-rimmed, beseeching. His lips moved but no words emerged. I tried to help.

"Had they ill-treated you before?"

"N – not systematically. The occasional beating, but they were almost routine." His chin quivered for a second. "But once they put me in solitary I was on strict regime. Restricted diet. So I – I'd already started to lose weight. Sometimes they'd interrogate you at night … to disrupt your sleep patterns. And the guards would rough-handle you but no … not like ... not the methods she used."

"Which were?" I prompted cautiously.

He was staring not so much at me as through me, his mind, I was sure, a long way from Thames House.

"Blindfolding you, then pretending to shoot, Russian roulette-style." He put a hand over his eyes for a moment. "Make you stand outside in the cold while they hurl questions at you; that's pretty effective when it's twenty below. But the worst was … was the - " His voice cracked on the last word, and I didn't hear it. He was holding his head in his hands, and, I noticed uneasily, rocking slightly from side to side. I sat back for a moment, wondering whether I should call it a day; although coherent, he was clearly distressed.

_Coherent is what matters, Ros._ I leaned forward. "Could you please repeat that? The worst was …?"

"The .. the w – water boarding." This time I caught it and my skin crawled. I had read descriptions of the technique in connection with some of the hearings on the British suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay.

"They did _that_ to you?"

"Yes." He sat up again; he was visibly trembling, holding on by a thread. "Do you know what it – what it means? " When I nodded, he said: "I - then – don't ask me. Please. Please … I can't talk about it."

For a second the thought flashed into my mind that he was playing me - it was, after all, the perfect excuse for avoiding further questions. Any intelligence officer has a streak of actor in him, but if Lucas's current distress was feigned, he deserved an Oscar. I remembered my own terror when Adam and I were trapped beneath the Thames Barrier, and compromised.

"Did you tell them anything? Anything at all?" I hesitated. "It's understandable if you did, under that kind of duress, Lucas. Nobody would blame you."

"_No._" He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. "Ros, even if I'd wanted to … I was just screaming, begging them to stop, that's all I _could_ do. Once it started I wasn't conscious for more than a few seconds at a time. I couldn't breathe … barely think …" He stopped and mumbled a helpless apology. "Nothing ... I swear to you … I told them nothing."

I put my pen down and poured both of us a cup of coffee. When Lucas mumbled a refusal I nudged the cup into his hands. "Come on, drink it, it'll help." I added a heaped spoonful of sugar. "It's Harry's own private stash; never usually leaves his office."

He managed a tremulous smile at that. For a moment I let the silence stretch while I pondered my next move. I'd read all the interrogation manuals, but something told me that this man had too. More, he'd _lived _them. When he nodded to the offer of a refill, I said casually: "Has the abuse caused you any problems?"

Suddenly the distress was replaced by his previous wariness. "What problems?"

I shrugged. "Health-wise. Personal. Like I had." I gave him a potted version of what had happened to me and Adam at the Barrier and told him the truth; that I'd been uncomfortable in and around water ever since, and that for a year afterwards, despite having a swimming Blue from Oxford, I could go to a pool only if I bullied myself into it. Lucas blinked rapidly.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." Carefully, he replaced his coffee cup onto the saucer, and tried to smile. "I've got a thing about showers. And getting caught in the rain terrifies me. I don't suppose that will help my promotion prospects?"

There was a note of appeal in his voice _and_ his expression, but I ignored it. Sympathy was one thing, and I was surprised at how much I felt for him, but I wasn't yet convinced of his reliability, and this debriefing still had a way to go.

"We'll see." I looked back at the file. "When you were transferred from Lefortovo you went to a prison out of Moscow?"

His body sagged at the prospect of further questions. He massaged his forehead slowly with one hand.

"A prison camp. Yes. Leshanko, in the Urals."

"With the same interrogators?"

Wearily, he shook his head. "No. No, Oleg took over once I got to Leshanko."

I noticed the easy use of the Christian name; in his exhaustion, Lucas hadn't noticed what he'd said.

"Oleg?"

"Darshavin." He rolled his shoulders to release the accumulated tension, and winced. "My guard, my shadow, my tormentor, my friend. Oleg Darshavin."

I noted the name, and closed my notepad. "All right. I think we'll leave the introduction to Mr Darshavin for next time. Thank you, Mr North."

He looked at me. "Miss Myers."

"Ros," I said automatically as I rose and collected my things together.

"Exactly." He managed a wry smile. He looked, I realised with a slight pang of guilt by which I felt both annoyed and embarrassed, a lot worse than when he'd arrived this morning, yet just for a second I glimpsed a flash of the charm Malcolm had mentioned. I made an effort and smiled back.

"Lucas. Sorry."

"It's all right." We turned back towards the Grid. "No-one's called me Mr North for eight years. Whoever he is, I don't think it's me."

When I stopped by my desk, he hesitated and glanced towards Harry's empty office. Then he met my eyes and gave another wan smile.

"Same time, same place tomorrow, then?"

I made a spur of the moment decision. He was white as a sheet, and he didn't look too steady on his feet, either.

"No need to push it. We'll call you in. Get some rest tomorrow." I cut off the protest I knew was coming with a shake of the head and Harry's three favourite words. "That's an order."

I stooped to put my papers into the safe, but then both of us turned as a gale of laughter came from the direction of the pods. Two junior officers burst through, both damply bedraggled and spraying rain from drenched umbrellas. They stopped laughing abruptly when they saw me glaring at them.

"Sorry, boss," one said hurriedly. "It's throwing it down out there."

Behind me, I heard Lucas's sharply indrawn breath, but when I looked up, he merely said, "Goodnight then."

"Goodnight." I locked the safe, and surprised myself with my next words. "Lucas!" He stopped. "How did you get here?" When he said 'bus' I said firmly: "I'll give you a lift back."

I expected an argument, even if only for show. He looked momentarily uncertain, but couldn't quite hide his relief.

"Thank you, Ros. Are you sure you - "

_Don't mind._ _Such a stupid question, and everyone asks it_. What I _wasn't_ sure was whether this was the right thing to do professionally. It certainly reduced the 'emotional distance' between us that Harry had talked about, and if Lucas North _was_ trying to deceive us he might take compassion for him to mean that he'd won this first round.

_Well, he'll be wrong. _I wasn't an inexperienced junior about to fall under the spell of his 'charm' or be seduced by his vulnerability. He was still potentially a traitor and until I was convinced that his proclaimed loyalty was genuine, he'd get no quarter from me. But he was a human being, and I could treat him humanely in the meantime. So I pulled on my raincoat, handed him my umbrella, and led him out of the Grid.

oOoOoOo

_Please leave a review. I don't mind what you say, but please do say something! _:)


	3. Chapter 3

_CHAPTER THREE_

I'd intended to do as Ros had suggested and take it easy before the next round of questioning. Though I wouldn't have told her so, I was completely drained following the first session. I felt as if she'd extracted from me not only every drop of information but every ounce of energy as well, and I certainly needed to try and recover before she started on me again. But after two days I was struggling to find something with which to fill the hours. The television alternately bewildered and bored me, and I had done enough reading in prison to last a lifetime. So when I got up I installed myself in the kitchen with a cup of tea, stirring the lemon slice moodily round and round as it stared up at me like a jaundiced eye, and tried to think of some way of occupying myself.

It was the lemon that gave me the idea. When we first married, Elizaveta had mocked me for, as she would put it, 'ruining' the tea by adding milk, and she had laughingly tried to convert me to the Russian habit of lemon tea. Eight years of imprisonment had succeeded where her gentle persuasion had failed.

_Elizaveta._ I had had to press him, but Harry had eventually, and with great reluctance, told me that she had divorced me on the grounds of desertion. I couldn't pretend that it didn't hurt, because it did, it hurt like bloody hell. Perhaps it was unreasonable to have expected anything else. After all, she was young, she was beautiful, and she had no idea when – or if – I was going to come back to her. And I wasn't naïve enough to think that the Russians wouldn't have put pressure on her. Darshavin had mentioned her a couple of times … hinted that something might happen to her if I didn't co-operate, might _have_ happened, when I didn't. Perhaps MI-5 had turned the screws on her too; how did I know? Even when I was clinging to the memory of her in prison, to the idea of a reunion with her, I think that in the depths of my soul I knew it was nothing more than an illusion. But it was an illusion that helped to keep me alive, and suddenly I wanted to see just how far it might have been from reality.

I took a bus to Vauxhall – the tube was still out of the question for me at the moment – and decided to cut through the park towards the house. Incredibly, I had barely passed through the gates when I saw her. Even after eight years I recognised her immediately. She had let her hair grow, but there was no mistaking that quick, decisive stride, or that mysterious half-smile that had so intrigued me when we first met. I was just about to call her name when she stopped, and crouched down on the path.

'_Lapochka maya, idi k mame!' _

_Come to Mummy? _The air around me seemed to have turned hot, and then, just as suddenly, icy cold. I stopped so abruptly that a youth on rollerblades had to swerve violently to avoid knocking me off my feet. I could vaguely hear him shouting abuse back over his shoulder, but all my attention was on Vyeta, now swinging an excitedly giggling little boy around in her arms. Even from where I was standing rooted to the spot, I could see the similarity between them.

I could feel the bitterness of anger rising up in me. How old was he, who was his father, above all, how long had she waited? I looked at the boy again. No, not how long. How soon … how _soon_ had she decided that I was a liability, a burden – a _mistake_? I wanted to march over to her, shatter _her_ illusions, and demand to know it all.

Fortunately, common sense kicked in, and I did none of those things. Instead, I just stood there watching them, silently trying to convince myself that this was right, the way it should be. After all, I wanted Vyeta to be safe, and I wanted her to be happy. I doubted that she would ever have been either of those things with me, not now. Common sense also dictated that I should go before she saw me, but even so, I think I might have stood there indefinitely had my mobile not begun to ring.

"Good morning, Lucas," Harry's voice said crisply. "I'd like you to brief us about Kachimov. Do you think you could come into the Grid?"

_Kachimov! _I swallowed hard. Presumably Ros Myers had told him about the debriefing, but I couldn't gauge from his tone what his reaction to it might be, and hope was already doing battle with anxiety in my mind. "I'm on my way."

oOoOoOo

Any hope that either Harry or Ros was going to be more sympathetic or less suspicious towards me melted away like a snowball in a heat wave within a few moments of my reaching the Grid. Harry was amiable enough, but totally impersonal. I barely recognised Ros as the woman who'd given me a lift home from the debriefing and, I had thought at the time, seemed genuinely, if very awkwardly, concerned about how I was. As Harry probed me about Arkady Kachimov, she leaned against the wall, watching me with an unchanging expression that seemed to me to combine both scepticism – which didn't surprise me – and considerable personal animosity, which did, since I hadn't sensed it before. Within an hour, and despite my protests, I was back on the street with nothing more than an injunction from Harry to 'go home and unpack' and a few platitudes about enjoying being back in England.

At that moment, I think I felt as alone as I had ever felt in Russia - more so, in a way. Elizaveta was lost to me, and even Harry didn't seem to understand that as long as I was barely tolerated within the walls of Thames House I wasn't, and never really would be, home. Ros's restrained but palpable hostility seemed to make the likelihood of any change to my status an even more remote prospect. Grateful as I was for Malcolm's hesitant attempts to be kind and Jo Portman's smiling friendliness, I knew they wouldn't be sufficient to counter the weight of their superiors' mistrust of me.

I suppose it was that – the feelings of rejection, the loneliness and the sheer uncertainty of my position – that meant that when Kachimov contacted me, I did as I was instructed without mentioning it to anyone on the Grid. I knew that Harry wanted Kachimov's head because of his involvement in the death of Adam Carter, and I'd noticed that Ros's eyes turned as hard as flint whenever his name was mentioned. Neither had feelings anywhere near as intense for him as I had developed over the previous eight years. And theirs were easier to manage – straight, pure loathing. Mine were a corrosive, confused, disabling mixture of hatred, fondness, gratitude and fear. But for the moment, he wanted me, and they didn't. So I went to Highgate Cemetery to meet my handler.

When Elizaveta appeared down the path I thought at first that I was hallucinating. I had been getting flashbacks, and half the time I wasn't sure whether what I saw in them was real or imaginary. Even when she stopped, close enough for me to smell her perfume and see the familiar flecks of gold in the darkness of her eyes, I was still too shocked and bewildered to be sure. So I blurted the first, inane thing that came into my mind – the truth. _I don't understand._

_Who better to be your handler?_ Every syllable she spoke stabbed into me as if she was using a dagger rather than words. The ground seemed to be rolling underneath my feet, and I had to sit, for fear that I would fall if I didn't. All the anger I had felt on seeing her in the park swelled back up again. Eight years … _eight years_ wasted, sacrificed on a Service that didn't trust or want me, and a wife who had discarded me like an unwanted pet. She had built a new life and created a family while I struggled to survive in Russia, clinging to the love of a woman who, unbeknownst to me, had already long switched her allegiance, apparently in every sense. Given time, I might have been able to patch over the wound from her personal betrayal, but this – this just ripped it wide open again.

I didn't move when she left; I didn't think I could. I wanted to hug her, to hit her, and part of me – a large part of me – just wanted to crawl away behind one of the grandiose Victorian angels looming over the tilting tombstones and hide my despair in the shadows. I hadn't felt such utter desolation since the time when I tried to take my own life in the prison at Leshanko. Not for the first time, I silently and vehemently cursed Oleg Darshavin for having saved it.

The crunch of feet on gravel made me move my own; the shock of seeing Ros Myers, her face set like granite, advancing on me, almost took me off them.

"Ros! Ros, I - "

She interrupted me with a snarl of contempt that made it clear she'd overheard at least some of my conversation with Elizaveta, and I felt my stomach clench with the realisation of what that might mean. _You didn't believe all that happiness crap, did you?_ Her next movement was so fast that all I felt was the shock of pain before everything went black.

oOoOoOo

When I came to my senses in Thames House I found myself caught like a trapped animal between Harry's incredulity and the silent, icy, disdainful glare of Ros Myers. The disappointment in me that I sensed beneath Harry's sarcastic words hurt, but it was the unspoken threat in _her_ silence that turned me cold. It could have been Captain Tukhachevskaya standing there, and it wasn't only the residual effect of the Taser that was making me shaky and nauseated. When Harry invited me, with a mockingly courteous gesture, to explain my conduct, I knew that this would be my last opportunity to convince him that I _wasn't _betraying MI-5. So I threw caution to the winds and told him everything, trying to ignore the glacial green eyes observing my every move like an eagle surveying its prey. The office door was slightly ajar, and from the Grid I could hear the urgent sounds of a full-blooded crisis being managed. The information Elizaveta had sought from me meant that I could hazard a fair guess at the nature of it, and that Kachimov was almost certainly deeply involved. I _had_ to persuade Harry that I wanted the Russian's hide every bit as much as he did. Together, we could bring the bastard down. I knew that was as close to revenge as I would ever get for everything Kachimov had taken from me – eight years of my life, the woman I loved, and the respect and trust of my colleagues and friends. I could feel the acid taste of the longing for that revenge in my mouth. But Harry – _and_ Ros, which surely was the rub - had to trust me first.

I kept it short – Harry had always had an acute allergy to verbosity unless it was his own – and waited while he studied me assessingly for a long moment. I wanted to hold his gaze, but despite myself I found it hard not to avert my eyes. Not because I was lying or ashamed, but because I simply couldn't bear to see regret or disillusionment. At last, he swivelled in his seat and looked over at Ros. Her eyes flicked from me to him, and without the slightest change of expression, she gave a crisp, decisive nod, peeled herself away from the wall she had been leaning against and moved to his side. Harry turned back to me. If I had ever wondered how much influence Ros had with him, I knew for sure now. Every trace of doubt and hesitation had vanished from his expression as completely if she had wiped it clean.

"This," he said briskly, spreading out a diagram in front of me, "is what we need."

"And this," Ros interjected quietly, sitting down opposite me, "is what _you_ are going to do."

oOoOoOo

Later, I found it incredible that we were successful in thwarting the Russian attack _and_ in turning Kachimov. In immediate terms the former was more important, but it was the latter that meant most to me. After eight years of systematic moral and physical degradation, I had _finally_ been able to hit back, and I couldn't pretend that I wasn't enjoying the sweetness of it.

When Harry gathered the team on the Grid to 'stand them down' I couldn't help smiling. He had never quite lost the patina of the army officer he had once been, and he did love his little pep talks. A lot had changed on the Grid in eight years, but that hadn't. Nor had dear old Malcolm, who was beaming proudly at his own immense contribution to the success of the operation. He hissed '_well done, Lucas!'_ in my ear, and gave me a clap of congratulation across the shoulders that almost knocked me from the edge of the table on which I was perched. I saw Jo quickly muffle a giggle, and smiled back at her. I remembered this, too. There was nothing quite like the atmosphere on the Grid after a successful operation, a heady sense of triumph that infected everyone involved.

I corrected myself. _Almost_ everyone. The one person who seemed singularly unimpressed by the positive vibes swirling around us was Ros Myers. She had followed Harry from his office, but I noticed that she had carefully stayed a few steps behind him, almost as if she were using him as a shield. There was nothing of her usual confident, straight-backed stride on display either; she had her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, and was keeping her head lowered and her eyes on the floor. Instead of taking her usual place alongside Harry when he started speaking, she moved quietly round to a table that was slightly isolated from the rest of the group and sat there, still very deliberately avoiding eye contact with anyone else. To look at her, you would think the operation had just gone belly-up and that she was personally responsible.

I was both puzzled and curious, but my attention was deflected by Jo's unexpected outburst that Kachimov was responsible for Adam Carter's death and we were letting him off too lightly. I remembered how emotionally she had spoken about Adam in the cafeteria, and hot on the heels of that came the recollection of what she had told me about Adam and Ros being a couple. I looked over at Ros, just in time to see her grimace in agreement. With a shock I realised that there was a glaze of tears in her eyes.

What had Harry said? _She's not as uncaring as she seems. _I spoke quickly, not so much to disagree with Jo as to distract attention from Ros.

"Don't underestimate his importance in future battles," I offered.

"That's just what Adam would have said." Ros's voice was strained, and she bowed her head again immediately she had spoken. I wondered what on earth had become of the woman who had so unhesitatingly lashed out at me with a riot stick just a few hours previously.

I didn't notice when she left the room. One minute she was there; the next, her seat was empty and there was no sign of her. Jo was still protesting heatedly that the punishment for Kachimov should fit the crime, but Harry cut her short and turned to me.

"Good job, Lucas. Thank you. You did well."

I felt myself colouring like a schoolboy who'd just been given a gold star by his favourite teacher. I tried to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah, well if it's bought me out of months of de-briefing …" I said ironically, although I didn't have the slightest idea whether it had.

Harry glanced towards Ros's deserted seat. "It's bought you a return to this Section. If that's what you want."

For a moment I wasn't sure I'd heard him right until Malcolm's beaming smile and Jo's grin confirmed his words for me.

"You know I do, Harry." The speed of the about-turn in my circumstances left me almost lost for words, and the few I could find emerged in little more than a croak. Harry extended his hand and shook mine firmly.

"Talk to Ros. She'll get you up to speed. Well done, everybody." Without further ado, he walked briskly back to his office.

_Talk to Ros._ _Sure. So, where the hell is she? _I was searching around the Grid, but there was no sign of her. _Where do I start looking?_

A hand tapped my shoulder. "Try the roof." Malcolm glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper. "But proceed with caution. Ros doesn't like fuss."

_He noticed, too. _I set off, in some trepidation, in the direction of the staircase. Whatever character traits I'd ascribed to Ros Myers in my own mind, approachability wasn't one of them.

Proceeding with caution went out of the window when the metal door to the roof screeched like an ill-tempered parrot on being pushed open. It was difficult to see in the fast-falling twilight, but the light from the stairwell caught Ros's hair as she turned at the noise.

"What is it?" she snapped. "Harry need me?"

"Not exactly." I smiled. "He just reinstated me."

"I know. Congratulations." She didn't sound as if she meant it, but after a pause, she added, "Or commiserations. You'll be working with me."

It was a brave effort, and I responded in kind. "Well, every job has its down side." I saw a very faint smile of acknowledgement. "Look, I know I'm not Adam, but - "

I got no further; instantly, she held up her hand, turning back to the balcony rail, and I cursed my own clumsiness. I'd been away from women – well, _normal _women – for a long time, and I hadn't picked the easiest example of the species through whom to renew my acquaintance with them. Well, one thing I couldn't do was to continue this conversation with ten feet of pre-stressed concrete between us. I walked slowly across and leaned next to her.

"I'll do my best. I mean, I'm a bit rusty, but I'll try not to make too much of a dog's dinner of things." She didn't answer. "Will you cut me some slack?"

She snorted. "As long as you don't hang your bloody self with it." I gasped at the phrase. When I looked up I wasn't surprised to see those sharp eyes raking my face again. Now it was my turn to take an intense and entirely feigned interest in the lights of the city below us. When Ros cleared her throat, I felt myself tense in anticipation of the inevitable question.

"You'll need to do the paperwork. HR." It was so unexpected that I just looked at her in confusion. "And get in touch with the medical service. Insurance, you know, all that tripe."

"Yeah … I'm sorry. Of course. Tomorrow. I'll get straight onto it tomorrow." There was another awkward pause. It was the verbal equivalent of a judo match, each of us warily circling the other and backing off whenever we came too close to contact.

"I'm sorry about the Taser." She shrugged.

"It's all right," I said. "Interesting experience. The Russians never tried that one. Too many power cuts in Moscow."

I was pleased – if amazed – when Ros laughed.

"Yeah, I bet." I wanted to ask why she had been in Russia, but caution held me back. Somehow, we had painfully inched our way onto to reasonably safe ground, and my father had always advised me to quit while I was ahead. I opened my mouth to say a friendly, uncontroversial 'goodnight' but froze in panic when I heard what actually came out.

"I think I might go for a celebratory drink. Would you like to join me?"

I expected sarcasm, indignation, even anger, but instead she stared at me in total incomprehension, as if I'd just suggested a quick return trip to Mars. For an instant, I wondered idiotically if I'd spoken in a language other than English. At last, she licked her lips.

"I'm not - " The sound of her mobile cut across her words. "Myers. Yes, Harry. No, of course I haven't. Yes. OK, I'm coming." She clicked the call off. "Sorry." She looked relieved at her escape rather than sorry. "Harry wants me." She gave a graceful shrug of the shoulders. "Try Malcolm. He has a glass of red wine most evenings. You might even be able to persuade him to a second one."

She turned away and headed across the roof. Then the tapping of her heels stopped, and I turned from the rail. In the light from the stairwell I could see her face clearly, and for the first time registered the slight redness around her eyes.

"Welcome home, Lucas." For a fraction of a second a genuine smile softened the severity of her features. "It'll be good to work with you."

She disappeared into the stairwell, pursued by the shriek of protesting metal, before I could frame an appropriate reply. I returned to gazing out across the twinkling lights of the city. The day had been such an emotional roller coaster and the end to it so totally unexpected that I still couldn't really take it all in. But for all her brusqueness and apparent indifference to other people, Ros Myers had summed it up to perfection.

Finally, I'd come home.

oOoOoOo

_A review ... pretty please? :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_CHAPTER FOUR_

I found it harder than I expected to get used to Lucas's presence on the Grid. He was next in seniority to me, and inevitably we had to spend a lot of time working together. Habit meant that I often turned to him expecting to see Adam, and at least twice I actually called him by the wrong name. He just smiled slightly as if it didn't matter, but I wanted to drop through the floor. I remembered Adam telling me once that Ruth Evershed had done the same to him when he replaced Tom Quinn, and how embarrassing it had been. Now I knew what he'd meant.

Not, God knows, that Lucas was anything like Adam. In a lot of ways, and not just in looks, they were diametric opposites. Adam's personality had been an open book, and unless it was required by an operation, he was about as good a dissembler as I am a party animal. Lucas was far more self-contained - and calm. That was in direct contrast to Adam, too. His temper was always on a medium-length fuse at best, though his tantrums were usually short-lived. Lucas rarely so much as raised his voice and his control almost never slipped. In all truth, he was more like me than Adam.

Paradoxically, it was precisely that which bothered me. I had a nagging feeling that we hadn't dug deep enough, that there were stormy waters churning somewhere under that smooth surface. I had wanted to continue debriefing him and cover his time with Darshavin at Leshanko too, not to mention his feelings about Elizaveta, which no one seemed to have considered at all. But after Lucas's admittedly invaluable help with Kachimov, Harry pronounced himself satisfied and over-ruled me, leaving me frustrated, but with no choice but to go along with his judgement.

I had tried to convince myself he was right. After all, Malcolm had been correct; Lucas _was_ good, damned good. He was also cheerful, friendly, and seemed totally relaxed with everyone - with one exception that worried me just a little further. Harry. It wasn't that their relations were tense, just … uneasy. It was touching, sometimes almost pathetic, to see how much Lucas needed Harry's approval; he would beam like a little boy with a bag of his favourite sweets, the idiot, when he got it. Yet at the same time, I thought I sensed a tiny undercurrent of antagonism – perhaps resentment would be a better word - towards Harry simmering just under the surface. That decided me; whatever Harry thought, and however long it took, I was going to get beneath that surface and know the _whole_ of Lucas North, the shade as well as the light. I made a mental note to wait for the right moment and meanwhile, pushed my concern about him to the back of my mind.

Because, unfortunately, this most definitely _wasn't_ the right moment. The terror threat level was jammed on 'severe' and we were working flat out. Just after Lucas's reinstatement, Harry and I had infiltrated Ben Kaplan into a group of low-level al-Qaeda gophers who, we suspected, were going to be used to launch a major attack in London. Ben was still young and fairly inexperienced, and I was worried about whether he could handle something so sensitive. I'd argued with Harry about it until he had pointed out that we didn't exactly have a queue of more suitable candidates for the job. A blonde, blue-eyed white woman with a model's looks wouldn't last five minutes, which ruled out Jo. Lucas's profile was better, but – however hot under the collar such a comment would make the Race Relations Board – he was the wrong colour. I did have one Pakistani field officer available, but Khalida was pregnant. Ben was the best, not to say the only option. So we sent him in with a rock-solid legend, and as a fail safe, I made Lucas his control. Meanwhile, we had two full teams of Watchers on Nadif Abdel Rashid, from whom the cell took its orders. Budget was throwing a fit about the cost, but so far Harry, by putting the frighteners on them about the possibly lethal consequences of being such a bunch of sodding cheapskates, had kept them at bay.

"Ros? Want one?" I jumped, and looked up. Lucas was waving a Danish pastry that would probably, from the looks of it, account for most of my usual calorie intake for the week. He took a large, enthusiastic bite out of what looked like its twin. Keep this up and he'd look like the Michelin tyre man by the summer.

"Young man, your teeth will rot if you carry on like that," Connie James said disapprovingly. She showed me a sheaf of papers. "From GCHQ, Ros. Nadif's phone calls from yesterday."

I glanced at them and whistled. "I wouldn't want his bills." I swivelled my chair round and almost head-butted the still extended pastry. "Lucas, for God's sake! Either eat it or bin it. Don't just stand there like a _patissier's_ version of a Heil Hitler salute. Is there _anything_ of use, Connie?"

She shook her head. "Not at first sight. Do you want me to get Malcolm to do a pattern analysis?" When I nodded, she said briskly: "Right. I thought you two were going to the meet with Marlin?"

"We are." I stared pointedly at Lucas. He shrugged and offered Connie the pastry.

"Go on," he said. "It'll make you sweeter than ever."

I watched in disbelief as she blushed, then took it and bustled off across the Grid like a plump, satisfied pigeon. Connie would have slapped down any other officer who tried being sassy with her, but like everyone else, she found it almost impossible to get annoyed with Lucas. I was about the only bloody female on the Grid even trying to resist his blandishments. He smiled as I got to my feet. I bared my teeth back at him. "Let's go."

oOoOoOo

We reviewed Ben's position as we drove to the meet at Greenwich. _That_ was the thing I appreciated most about Lucas, not his easygoing charm on the Grid. If only those bloody doubts of mine hadn't persistently kept trying to sneak their way back into my mind he would have been the perfect colleague. He was a professional to his bootlaces, and the minute we were operational he was focused, alert, and not easily shaken.

Which was just as well, because Marlin's information was enough to shake even the most solid of nerves – including, apparently, his own. His tension was obvious, and it was contagious, too; both of us were on edge when we got back into the car. I phoned Harry and suggested he bring forward our next scheduled meeting with the Home Secretary to later that afternoon. That produced a discontented muttering that I allowed myself to believe was due to a poor-quality signal.

"You think we should warn Ben straight off?" Lucas asked.

"No. in the morning. Don't break routine. If Marlin's right and they're ready to go, they'll be looking for anything out of the ordinary. I'm going to call the Watchers." I went back to the phone. "If Nadif so much as hiccoughs I want to know how many Rennies he takes."

"You don't think Marlin's trying to throw us off the scent?" Lucas said, when I'd finished issuing instructions to an exasperated Watcher team leader. "You know, _disinformatsiya_?"

I shot him what I hoped was a withering glance. "Adam always trusted him, and he was a good judge. And _disinformatsiya_'s a KGB trick, Lucas, not al-Qaeda. _Autre temps, autre moeurs. _The Arabs work differently."

He coloured slightly. "I do _know_ that, Ros. I may not be the expert Adam was, but I have been ploughing through years of back newspaper reports."

I silently conceded the point. He had. And with his photographic memory he could probably quote me the articles word for word. Lucas had spent hours of his own time in the archives, filling in the gaps caused by an eight-year information vacuum. He'd also driven poor Malcolm to distraction by demanding detailed explanations about the technological developments that had passed him by in his cell at Leshanko. The only thing that ever really ruffled him was if someone seemed – as I had just done – to be suggesting that he was in any way behind the times.

"Malcolm's monitoring the website chat levels," I said. "We'll know more when you've seen Ben. Tell him to tread very, very carefully."

Lucas eased onto the bridge. "Jo's been getting a bit anxious about him; she thinks he's risking too much."

I caught the sideways glance in the mirror. "You mean, she thinks I'm _forcing_ him to risk too much." His silence was confirmation, and I felt my temper rising. "Lucas, he's a big boy; he even learnt to tie his own shoelaces last week. Risks go with the job. This is no time for Jo to start playing Jiminy Cricket. God, didn't we have enough with bloody Ruth doing it!"

"Ruth?" He steered down the garage ramp and we both reached for our ID cards.

"Yes." I could hear I was biting off the words. "Ruth Evershed. Connie's predecessor. Left about two years ago. She used to give me lessons in morals, too."

"Yeah, she _had _to leave, didn't she?" He glanced at me across the car roof, and I slammed a door that could have been closed with a flick of the fingers. Whatever else his bloody reading had covered, I knew it wouldn't have included the personnel files. Only Harry and I had access to those.

"Jo been gossiping again?" I snapped.

"No." Lucas's voice was perfectly neutral. "Malcolm told me."

_Clever._ He knew I'd carpet Jo but would probably be more lenient towards Malcolm. I wondered whether he knew exactly _why_ Ruth had had to leave, and the part I had played in her departure.

"He said she was a very nice woman," he added.

"She was." _I wasn't._ I stepped into the lift – a small one – and looked challengingly at him. Without a word, he followed me in. In the small space, we were wedged tightly, and pressed close to one another. By the time we reached the lobby the proximity was bothering me as much as him, and we walked to the Grid in a silence that I think we were both too embarrassed to break. It was almost a relief when Malcolm rushed up to me.

"Ros! It's starting."

oOoOoOoOo

It was still dark when my phone woke me the following morning, and a torrential rainstorm was battering the streets; I could hear it. I swallowed a gulp of mineral water from the glass by my bed and grunted my name into the phone. When I heard Harry's voice my stomach did a somersault worthy of Olga Korbut.

"Ros, Lucas has seen Ben. He says Nadif's instructed them to take the day off work and wait for orders. Lucas thinks it's the dry run. I need you here now."

I only managed 'I'll be - ' before he hung up. Something had to go, so I sacrificed a shower in favour of a cup of scalding black coffee swallowed in snatches as I dressed. I listened to the news on the way to Millbank, and muttered a prayer of thanks to the weather gods when the rain eased off. As I reached Thames House, the political correspondent was beginning to interview the Home Secretary. When he asked whether the government was exaggerating the current terrorist threat to Britain, I switched the radio off with a muttered obscenity. That would make Nicholas Blake's day. He'd spent a fair bit of our meeting yesterday trying in vain to cajole Harry into lowering the threat level – and in putting me in my place. He could do that any time; I'd rather be in my place than his.

Harry was in his office on the telephone; he looked relieved when I came in.

"What's happening?" I demanded. "Where's Lucas?"

Harry pointed out onto the Grid, and I saw Jo Portman hurrying in through the pods. "Mopping up; he got soaked. Malcolm's monitoring the traffic. It's going through the roof, apparently. We've got Watcher teams on Nadif and the other group he liaises with. Ben says Nadif left instructions with the other kid he's with, what's his name - "

"Jawad El-Khammoun," I said automatically. "We think this _is _the dry run, then?"

"Certain of it." Lucas came in, rubbing his hair with a towel. "It all fits. Waterfall, dry run …"

"Boom." I absently provided the end of Marlin's description. Lucas looked a bit green around the gills, but before I could say anything, Harry asked gruffly:" "All right now, lad? Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, Harry. It's not a problem." Lucas shot a quick look at me. It took me a second to identify the mingled strands of gratitude and shame in the tangle of emotions on his face. "So, what do we do?"

_What was that all about?_ I wanted to ask, but suddenly Jo rushed into the office. "Harry, Ros, the Watchers report they're on the move!"

"Right. Come on." I swept out, followed by Harry. "Jo, you join the Watchers with the pair in Stoke Newington. Lucas, tail Ben and Jawad. Keep in touch; regular reports. Go." As they left, I turned towards Connie, who was just shedding her coat. "Connie, contact Nadif's monitors and keep the line open, I want to know every step he takes. Let's keep on top of this."

Connie gave me her best 'headmistress' look before she turned to her phones. "And good morning to you too, Rosalind."

Behind me, I heard Harry tut. "Detention tonight." He patted my arm. "Ros, you can handle the dry run. I have some business I need to attend to."

I stared after him in surprise as he disappeared through the pods and into the lifts. This wasn't the first time in the last few days I'd had the impression that Harry was distracted by something. I might have objected if I hadn't relished the challenge of being in sole charge. I turned back and prepared to meet it.

oOoOoOo

'_Pride comes before a fall, Rosalind.' _I'd had a teacher in the International School in Lima whose favourite phrase that was. In my youthful arrogance I'd always considered it the last snarky refuge of those who were too stupid to have anything much to be proud of. I was just beginning to feel smugly pleased with my own performance as we carefully monitored the progress of four young men and their bombs when Lucas's voice, tense with urgency, burst through the loudspeaker into which Malcolm was feeding reports from the street. _Ros, the bombs are primed! This is live, I repeat, this is live. _

I remember thinking that it was as if someone had pressed the pause button on a recorded TV show. All movement on the Grid, including mine, stopped. In the echoing silence I felt the weight of fifty pairs of horrified eyes on me, and heard that precise, warning voice in my ears. _Pride comes before a fall, Rosalind._

I flicked the transmission switch. "Understood. Keep them in sight, stand by." I span to Malcolm. "Call CO-19, put bomb disposal on alert. Start extrapolating for possible targets." I could feel twin trickles of sweat inching their way down my body, and irrelevantly swore at myself for having decided to wear a white blouse today of all days. "Where's Harry?"

I must have repeated that question a half-dozen times. Connie kept ringing, but when his phone went repeatedly to voice mail I knew I was completely on my own. I concentrated so hard that the faces around me blurred into little more an inchoate mass of colour at which I fired instructions as we inched towards success. My blouse was clinging to me when that last mobile rang and Lucas and I realised almost simultaneously that we'd been deceived.

We couldn't stop the third bomb from exploding. Two CO-19 officers died, and I stood there, listening to that crackling hiss of static from Jo's wire with tension cramps almost doubling me over. My chest was constricted with the scream of impotent rage I couldn't give vent to. That flat, mechanical, repeated '_Zulu Three, respond' _seemed to come from somewhere outside of me; I almost turned to see who else had spoken the words.

Somehow, thank God, Jo survived. Connie stepped in and took her in hand when she got back to the Grid. I gratefully allowed Lucas to provide a supportive listening ear to Ben, fled to the toilets, locked myself in and threw up. Then I released the remaining accumulated tension in a thoroughly good, solitary, uncharacteristic bloody howl before briefing Harry.

A little later we reported to Nicholas Blake and took a mutual, gleeful, wonderfully uncharitable pleasure in witnessing the discomfiture of a thoroughly chastened Richard Dalby. The Home Secretary had even been complimentary, and I'd been touched, if embarrassed half to death, when Harry gave me a huge thank-you hug in the corridor outside his office. I asked Ben to take care of Jo and declined Connie and Malcolm's invitation to join them for a drink at the Cricketers'. The Grid had emptied out, and Harry had disappeared to 'a meeting'. I should have left too, of course. Any sensible person _would_ have done, but I had always found the let-down of going home alone after a successful operation difficult to manage. So I was sitting at my desk absently watching a news round-up when a voice startled me. I swung round.

"Hey," Lucas said.

_Hey._ I rolled my eyes to heaven. He must have been watching too many episodes of The Simpsons since he came home. _Speak bloody English. _"Hey, yourself," I answered, ungraciously. I watched him move to his desk and pick up his mobile. With the operation wound up, I'd assumed he had long since gone home, and – professional paranoia _oblige_ - wondered why he was still hanging about.

He frowned at the screen, and then looked over at me. "Hear you gave the politicians both barrels earlier."

I snorted. "When it comes to politicians I regret only having two to give them."

He gave a crooked smile and pulled his jacket on. "Harry was right, though. We've got nothing to reproach ourselves with."

At another time I might have let that pass, but I was tired, therefore tetchy, and the complacency of the remark got right under my skin.

"Yes, we have." His eyebrows went up in what looked to me like mocking enquiry, and I got to my feet. "Bastards got one past us. I've always been annoyingly competitive and perfectionist, and that _really_ annoys me."

Again I saw the swift, slightly twisted smile. "Bet it really annoys your friends, too."

I wasn't sure whether he was flirting, and cursed my ingrained inability to take anything anyone said to me at face value. I repaid him in his own coin.

"What was it you said to Marlin about friends? Over-rated, I think it was." He murmured '_touché' _at having his own words quoted back at him, and I allowed myself a smile. "Not a big one for dinner parties myself."

He raised an eyebrow. "Colleagues, then?"

"Yeah." I kept my tone light and airy, even as I wondered who was probing whom. "Lovers leave, friends annoy you, families mess with your head." As I said the words it occurred to me that the phrase could have been my own personal motto. "Colleagues are OK."

I was about to turn away when he said: "Ah. But are they to be trusted?"

"Yes," I said firmly. "They are."

"All of them?" Now _he_ was the one doing the scrutinising. I hardened my tone. This wasn't playing any longer. There was something else here … something darker. Almost menacing.

"All of them."

"Even the most senior?"

I felt a stab of anger at the implication. "Particularly him." I glared at him. "Harry sweated blood to get you back here. He'd rather die than let anything happen to you."

He glanced down for a second, then half-smiled. "Yeah. Colleagues are OK." He turned away. "Night, Ros."

_Oh no, you don't._ This was the moment I'd been waiting for. I let him get halfway to the pods and then called: "Lucas!" He stopped. "In that case, how about that drink you mentioned?"

There was a pause, and although his face betrayed nothing, I knew he was trying to work out my motives. I bit my lip, and gave him my most appealing Shy Little Girl smile. It always worked on honey trap targets, and Adam had been a sucker for it too. It would work on Lucas North.

It did. "Yeah, sure." He smiled back, although the smile was guarded. "Why not?"

There were several answers I could have given to that, but I contented myself with a smile. "Good. Give me a few minutes."

He nodded, eased himself onto the edge of Jo's desk and sat there swinging his legs with a casual ease that I nonetheless thought was forced. "Any suggestions where?"

"There's a good place in Pimlico. Not far." I swiftly shut my mind to the thought that Adam and I had visited it together too. It was quiet, and the staff knew Rachel Marshall, Foreign Office translator, well. Privacy guaranteed. I closed the computer and took off my high-heeled shoes. Lucas watched me with a touch of amusement.

"I wondered how you were going to walk."

"I was thinking of putting one foot in front of the other." I pulled on my boots. "I usually find it's the easiest way. Maintains forward momentum. Avoids attracting attention unnecessarily."

He laughed. "Straight out of the Off-Duty Conduct Protocol. Do they still have it?"

" Yep. Decent, Discreet and Deceptive. The good old three Ds."

"I thought that applied to films these days," Lucas observed.

I silently and grudgingly admitted that he was quick. There weren't many people around who could out-quip me. I buttoned the heavy, fur-lined sheepskin coat that had been the last birthday present I had received from my father – from the good old days when he was in a position to go out and buy one. I pushed _that_ thought away, too, and looked up to see Lucas staring at me, his face suddenly pale.

"What's up?" I asked, fastening the collar.

"Nothing. The coat, it – it's very Russian. You – er - you … you remind me of someone, that's all."

_Elizaveta._ I was going to find out how he felt about her, too. I picked up my bag and looked into those suddenly anxious blue eyes. "Well, shall we?"

oOoOoOo

_Please take a second to leave a review! :) Thank you!  
><em>


	5. Chapter 5

_CHAPTER FIVE_

It was anger really, that made me take up Ros's invitation. I knew she hadn't made it merely for the pleasure of spending time in my company; when _I'd _asked _her_ to go for a drink she'd given every sign of being desperate to avoid it. No, despite Harry's imprimatur on my reinstatement, and the fact that almost everyone else on the Grid seemed happy to have me on the team, the jury was still out as far as Ros Myers was concerned. Whether she just hated seeing me filling Adam Carter's shoes or whether she still couldn't believe that I wasn't freelancing for the Russians in my lunch break, I wasn't sure. I suspected the latter. Either way, before she shared any misgivings she might have with Harry, I had to get the situation sorted out. Knowing her better would help, although when I said so to Malcolm he had looked at me doubtfully and muttered something about biting off more than I could chew. I'd refrained from comment. Actions speak louder than words.

She was clearly well-known at the bar; the owner greeted her with an affectionate hug, and then looked speculatively at me.

"El Senor Nick is not with you, Rachelita?"

Ros shrugged with every appearance of indifference. "I'm afraid he dumped me for a younger model, Paco."

The Spaniard's eyes glittered with indignation on her behalf. "Then he is _un gran estupido_. You take the usual, si?"

"Yes, thank you." Ros guided me to a table at the rear of the room. Its position was secluded from most of the other tables, but it overlooked a rear garden. Ros glanced at me.

"There's a door there too." She pointed. "If you need it."

I wondered if she was rubbing my nose in it, but then realised that her concern was quite genuine.

"It's fine, thanks." I shed my coat. "Nick?"

"Nick Harding. It's the name he knew Adam by." She unbuttoned her coat and I helped to ease it from her shoulders. It was unexpectedly heavy, and Ros winced as it almost slipped from my hands.

"Sorry. I feel the cold easily." She straightened her jacket and skirt and sat down. "At least I won't remind you of Elizaveta now." I must have looked puzzled, because she added: "Oh. Not Elizaveta?"

I wondered that she needed to ask. Elizaveta was brunette, dark-eyed and feminine in a very Russian way that I suspected Ros would find demeaning.

"No … no. Tukhachevskaya." I swallowed. "She had one very similar. When she interrogated me in the courtyard." I hung the coat on a hook and sat down too. "Now _that_ was cold."

"I'm sorry." Ros murmured her thanks as the waiter brought a carafe of red wine and a tray of mixed _tapas_. "You should have said."

I shrugged. "No need for you to freeze to death just because she wanted me to."

Ros smiled with an awkwardness that suggested it was something she rarely did. Then she poured both of us a glass of wine.

"Well, here's to a successful operation." We touched glasses. "You did a bloody good job, you and Ben. If you hadn't managed to warn us this was a live attack …" She shuddered.

I was taken aback. Ros wasn't lavish with her praise; a terse '_good work_' was usually as effusive as she got. I sipped. The wine was superb.

"Argentinian," Ros offered. "Malbec. Have you ever tried it before?"

_Where? In Leshanko? _"Hardly," I snapped, irritated by her lack of sensitivity. "Darshavin's generosity occasionally stretched to a walk in the swamps around the prison. Not to red wine."

I was surprised when Ros lowered her eyes. "Sorry. I'm not doing very well, am I?" She took a long draught of the wine. "This is why I don't do dinner parties … or friends. Not very good at it, I'm afraid." She looked genuinely contrite, and for a moment I felt sorry for her. I swallowed down my annoyance and shrugged.

"You obviously suited Adam." _Even if I still can't understand why._

Ros tensed. "Off-Duty Conduct Protocol, paragraph five. _Relationships with your fellow-officers are encouraged by the Service. Few will better understand the need for secrecy and the restrictions on your private life._ I was convenient."

The hollow bitterness of those last three words jolted me, but before I could speak, she said: "Come on Lucas. It may not be pretty, but at least it's honest. You know the hoops you had to go through over your marriage to Elizaveta."

"I loved Elizaveta!" I retorted angrily. "I wouldn't have sacrificed what I had with her for the sake of bloody convenience!"

Ros speared a marinated olive and nibbled thoughtfully. "It must have hurt terribly when you found out that she'd done exactly that to you," she said quietly.

I glared at her. "She was coerced - and alone, and frightened. It's completely different."

"But it _did_ hurt?"

"Of course it did! I loved her. I still do." I looked out of the window, then back at her. "Not everyone can organise their relationships on the basis of convenience, Ros!" Without really wanting it, I concentrated furiously on spreading pate onto a cracker. Ros helped herself to a piece of squid in batter.

"And not everyone can avoid jumping to the obvious conclusion. Just because I didn't go to pieces and have hysterics when Adam died, it doesn't mean I didn't care."

I snorted. "You didn't look as if you did. Jo – now she gets _really_ upset about him."

"Yes, she would." There was weariness in her voice. She turned the stem of her wine glass slowly between her fingers. Then she met my eyes. "For your information, I've only loved two men in my life. He was one of them."

I had been about to take a bite, but the dignified sincerity with which she spoke stopped me.

"And the other?"

"Was my father." Ros picked delicately at a sardine.

_Was._ "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know. When did he die?"

Her face was completely impassive. "I thought you'd read up on eight years of news reports?"

I frowned. _What the hell is she talking about? _"I don't understand."

Ros sighed. "It doesn't matter. I know what it's like, that's all. I miss Adam. You miss Elizaveta. Both of us lost someone we loved to Arkady Kachimov. I'm just trying to say I understand." She waved her hand in a gesture of self-deprecating exasperation. "Badly, as usual."

I didn't know quite what to say. I wasn't used to seeing Ros unsure of herself. On the Grid she always seemed so totally confident and in command. At last I said: "Well, he won't have much of a life now as a Service asset. So at least we got some revenge on him. You for Adam, me for Elizaveta."

For a second there was a strange expression in Ros's eyes, but it disappeared almost at once.

"Yeah. And Harry for you."

"Harry for me?" I echoed, stupidly.

"Of course." Ros sliced a piece of dried fish in two and pushed half towards me. "What, did you think he was completely indifferent to what that pig-ignorant bloody thug did to you?"

The sudden viciousness in her language startled me.

"Kachimov was a lot of things, but he wasn't pig-ignorant," I pointed out. "Anything but, actually. He was a graduate of history, MGU. Knew Russian history inside out. And ours. We used to talk about it."

Ros's lip curled. "So he was an educated thug, then."

The contempt in her voice galled me. She knew _nothing_ about Kachimov, and less about me.

"He wasn't a thug, Ros, educated or otherwise. He had subtlety. Intelligence. Sophistication. I'm not a fool. I know he manipulated me for years - he used every psychological tool available to him to do it. Yes, he stole those years from me. I wanted his head for it and as far as I'm concerned, everything he gets now he deserves. But he was cultured and knowledgeable. I met enough thugs in prison. Real ones. Lived cheek to jowl with them. Got beaten to a pulp by them more than once. I know the difference, believe me. Arkady Kachimov was out of a completely different mould. The kind of man you could hold a conversation with. Might even have been friends with in a different world."

Ros pulled a face that eloquently said '_if you say so_'. She refilled my glass and then her own.

"So _do_ you think that Harry didn't care, then?"

I shrugged. "I was in a Russian jail for eight years, Ros. Kachimov used to taunt me for the first four because MI-5 hadn't made any attempt to trade for me. Or even find out where I was. In Leshanko I was just another common criminal, number 56711. Hungry, flea-ridden, dirty and cold like all the others. I wasn't even a British spy worth holding onto any longer. No-one from our side was interested in me so I was of no value to them either. What am I supposed to think?"

Those clear green eyes held mine, as devoid of expression as her voice when she spoke.

"When Harry ordered me to debrief you I had to go through your file, you know. Not just your personal details and your career with the Service. It covered the time of your detention as well. Detailed Harry's contacts with the Foreign Office, Six, the British Embassy in Moscow … he even wanted to involve the UN and the International Red Cross. The PM vetoed that – yes," with a nod, "he took it that high, Lucas. And when they said no, he used intermediaries to get Amnesty International to dig too."

"I - " I stared at her. "I – I never heard about any approaches … anything like that."

"I'm sure you didn't," Ros said wryly. "But that doesn't mean it isn't true, Lucas."

I picked up my glass and then put it down again, doubt and confusion making me feel light-headed. I wished Ros's face wasn't so impassive; it made it almost impossible for me to read it.

"If it is, why hasn't _he_ told me?"

She shrugged, watching me with that inscrutable expression. "Because he knew you wouldn't believe him?"

I wondered what she would say if I explained how I'd told Harry that morning of my flashback to Captain Tukhachevskaya demanding over and over again that I tell her about an operation codenamed 'Sugarhorse'. He'd been sympathetic, but he'd denied all knowledge of it. '_Trick question_,' he'd said. I didn't believe that either.

I blew out a deep breath, rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and pulled down the zip on the collar of my sweater. Suddenly I was sweating and stifled. Ros raised her eyebrows in enquiry.

"It's hot in here." As I dabbed my face with a paper napkin, Ros gestured to a waiter, who came and eased the window open.

"Now _you'll_ get cold," I objected as she hunched her shoulders and shivered slightly.

"Don't fuss," Ros snapped. "I'm fine. And you need the air." Her voice lost some of its hardness. "Look out there and take some deep breaths. It'll pass."

I leaned towards the window and did as she said. "Were you this bossy with Adam?"

"Sometimes." She gazed into the depths of her wine. When she pulled her jacket tight and tucked her hands into her sleeves I closed the window again.

"Does that mean anything in particular?" She pointed to the linked chains tattooed just above my wrists.

"It's the symbol of someone who's sentenced to life," I answered.

"Were you?" Ros asked.

"I was never charged, let alone tried and sentenced. But I didn't expect to get out. Same thing." I popped an olive into my mouth. "I told Harry, it all means something. It's like a coded language in there. And it means you belong."

She toyed with her fork. "The Service can help you with it, you know, Lucas, the claustrophobia. Some therapy would - "

"No." I blurted the word out before she'd finished speaking. "_No._ I can cope." When Ros looked at me sceptically, I lost my temper. "How can they know anything about it? Nobody can know what it's like unless you've been through it." Her steady gaze fuelled my anger. "People here – you think freedom's being able to say what you want, think what you want – _have _what you want. That isn't freedom, those are _luxuries_. Ros. Indulgences! _That's_ when you learn what freedom is – when you don't have it any longer. When your world – your whole bloody _life_ – is circumscribed by a room eight feet by six, and you'd claw at the door with your bare hands if only that would make it open. When every cramped, constricted move you make is subject to the say-so of someone whose job it is to make your life as unbearable as they possibly can. When the claustrophobia was at its worst I used to lie on the floor, watching the chink of light under the bottom of the door. Sometimes I'd see shadows or hear feet pass, and I'd know there was something, maybe some_one_ beyond those walls. There were times when Darshavin came and I used to weep with the sheer relief of seeing another human being … hearing a voice. I didn't care what he said, or even what he _did_ to me, as long as he came." I paused for breath, but she said nothing, just sat there like a carved Sphinx, watching me. "Here, if you're hungry you go and eat – there, you don't even dare to let them _see_ how hungry you are, because if you do, you've shown a weakness they can exploit. Do you – you or your bloody counsellors – have any idea – any _inkling_ of the humiliation, the degradation of soiling yourself because you haven't the freedom you all take for granted to go and relieve yourself when you need to? Of being watched when they _do_ allow you to? I remember one night when they distributed extra blankets. I refused, told them I didn't need one – solely because I could, because it gave me the power to take a decision for myself, just for once _not_ to passively do as I was told. The cell was so cold that I spent the whole night awake, shivering. Bone-headed stupidity, but that's how desperate you get, Ros, for freedom … _space … _mental and physical; to be a human being, not a number. Do you think meditation and – and drawing bloody pictures is going to help with that? It's another world, prison. _Any _prison. Why do you think suicide rates are so high? It humiliates and degrades a man, and when it's done that it breaks him. That's the whole point of it. You wouldn't understand that. No more would they."

I hadn't intended to say any of it, but the words had gushed out of me in a flood that I couldn't control. It was only when I stopped, drained from the intensity of the emotions that had suddenly overwhelmed me, that I realised that Ros had a hand to her mouth. She was ashen-white. I stared at her, shocked.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." She got swiftly to her feet. "Excuse me for a moment - " I thought I heard her retch as she turned and fled in the direction of the toilet.

I nibbled uneasily at the _tapas_ until she came back. She had re-applied her make-up and was outwardly composed again but I could feel the tension under the self-control.

"Sorry," I said. "Don't know where that came from. Must have been the wine."

She smiled, though there was still a bleakness in her eyes. "Maybe we ought to move on to coffee, then." She called Paco and ordered a pot. I wanted to know why she'd been so obviously distressed by my outburst; it was completely out of character for a woman so unemotional. But I knew for a certainty that even if I asked she wouldn't tell me.

"Sorry?" I realised I hadn't heard her.

"I said, do you want a brandy or whisky with it?"

I laughed and shook my head. "You're getting me mixed up with Harry. That's one thing that hasn't changed. Still keeping the Highland distilleries in profit."

"He keeps it within reason." Ros said. "It does no harm."

I reflected that that was the second time this evening that she'd sprung to his defence. "You really think a lot of him, don't you? Harry."

"He's a fine officer, a superb leader and a good man. Why shouldn't I?"

She was still a little pale, but there was a warning spark in her eyes. "No reason." I waited while the coffee tray was laid out. "He never re-married, then, after the divorce?" She shook her head. _God, but she's a frustrating bloody woman._ She'd already inveigled me into revealing more of myself to her this evening than I ever had to the Russians, and she'd done it with ease. But trying to get information from _her_ was like trying to prise a pearl from a recalcitrant oyster. I adjusted my approach. "Do you know if he sees his kids? I wanted to ask, but I don't want to put my foot in it if it's a sore point."

"Catherine, yes. Graham – I don't think so. He sees Wes regularly – that's Adam's son. Takes him out, visits him at school."

"That's nice." I took a risk. "Do you go with him?"

Her eyes turned cold. "I hardly think I'm Harry's type," she said, stiffly.

_And_ she was touchy – incredibly so – the minute I trespassed on the personal. I edged back a step and raised the coffee pot. "Shall I be mother?"

She still looked tense, but her lips twisted in a sardonic smile. "Yeah, go on. Black for me, please, no sugar."

_That figures. _I added three spoonfuls to my own and Ros shook her head. "You're lucky Connie isn't here to see that. Hundred lines – _I shall not be greedy._"

I laughed. "You're not wrong. I bet she's the maiden aunt from hell. Now she and Harry go back a long way – maybe _she's _his type."

Ros stopped with her cup halfway to her lips and impaled me with a look. "Spare me, Lucas." I let the silence stretch invitingly, but she said nothing more. I wondered if she knew how to _spell_ 'gossip' and 'small talk', never mind indulge in them. Jo was a lot easier. I wondered if it was still mistrust or just Ros's personality that made things so laboured. She seemed to have no difficulty talking about or listening to _me_, but the shutters came down immediately and with a resounding slam whenever the conversation turned to her. Ironically, her reticence made her more intriguing to me, not less, but the more I tried to close the distance she kept between us, the more determined she seemed to be to maintain it. I tried again.

"Anyway, I didn't mean _that_. You both knew Adam, and Harry does rely on you."

"That's what I'm there for." Her mouth snapped shut on the words like a steel trap, but after a pause she added more quietly: "No, I don't. I'm useless with kids, and anyway, they don't like me. I'd be no good."

It occurred to me that she didn't seem to like herself very much either. Then she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and asked: "Did you and Elizaveta want kids?"

I felt as if she'd punched me in the solar plexus. "Yeah. Yeah, we did." I coughed to clear the sudden hoarseness from my throat. "Vyeta's an only child, too. She used to say she wanted at least four; two of each. Well, she's on her way now."

I hadn't actually meant to say the last six words aloud, and when I looked up I just caught what looked very much like sympathy in Ros's eyes. Hurriedly, I blurted out a diversionary question. "Are you an only child?"

She shook her head. "No. Middle of three. And my sister has two boys." A pale glimmer of a smile. "So I'm the maiden aunt from hell, too."

I couldn't help laughing. "You do get on with them, then?"

"I don't see them. Family issues." The rattle of the barriers going up again almost drowned her words.

_Families mess with your head. _I remembered that comment about her father and the news reports. Instinct, plus what she'd just said, told me that there was more to it than a dead parent. I silently resolved to go back to those news reports and find out whatever it was Ros Myers had assumed that I already knew. I wasn't going to learn about it here; the horse's mouth was firmly shut.

"Refill?" I offered.

"No, thanks." Ros rubbed her eyes wearily. "I think I ought to get moving, Lucas. Do you mind? Sorry, but it's been one hell of a long day."

"Of course not," I said. She managed a tired smile, and scribbled an invisible signature in the air in the direction of the manager. When Paco brought the bill I reached for it, but Ros shook her head and the Spaniard deftly swooped around my hand and deposited it in front of her.

"No," she said firmly when I protested. "This was my idea, _I _invited _you_."

"Freedom?" I tried my most appealing expression, the one Vyeta used to call '_poproshainik_' – the word the Russians use to describe a dog begging for a treat. "Being able to take your own decisions … remember?"

"This is a Spanish bar, not a Russian prison." She paid, and glared at me when I defiantly put down several pound coins as a tip. Suddenly I felt uncertain.

"That _is_ enough?" I'd made enough of a fool of myself in the supermarket, and I still had to look twice at the price tags in many shops.

Again, I saw that unexpected flicker of compassion soften the hardness of her eyes as she rose from the table. "Yes. Yes, it's fine."

"Good." I helped her on with her coat, and we headed for the exit. "My turn next time."

I don't know why I said it, because I was pretty sure that for Ros the evening had been little more than a continuation of the debriefing process in a more convivial setting. Although I wasn't much better; I'd been doing just as much probing and manoeuvring – though with a lot less success, I reflected grimly. What I _hadn't _expected was to have enjoyed it. Yes, to say that Ros was hard going socially would be the understatement of the year, but she could be witty and amusing, too. She was a good listener; blowing off steam about prison had been a relief. And just occasionally there were glimpses of compassion and vulnerability that increased my desire to know her as more than just my superior officer.

She made a _moue _of distaste at the wind that greeted us outside, and pulled up her fur collar.

"You shouldn't be so reckless, Lucas. I might think you mean it."

At the beginning of the evening I would have taken that for scornful dismissal; now it sounded more like someone looking for reassurance. I provided it.

"I do." I grinned. "I like living dangerously."

"I'll remember that." Her expression turned serious. "Think about what I told you - about Harry. Goodnight, Lucas."

"Goodnight." I stood watching as she walked swiftly away down the street. My mobile rang and I looked at the screen as Ros's slender silhouette was engulfed by the shadows.

_Elizaveta calling._

oOoOoOoOo

_Slight pause now, I'm afraid, I'm going on holiday. Thank you for a little review! :)_


	6. Chapter 6

_CHAPTER SIX_

That evening in Paco's wine bar certainly gave me food for thought for the next couple of weeks. Lucas's outburst about his time in prison had caught me completely by surprise, although I think I managed to keep the traditional Ros Myers 'blank face' mask in place and conceal from him just _how_ taken aback I was by it. It emphatically proved that I was right in suspecting that his habitual calm, relaxed façade wasn't necessarily any more substantial than one of those in Potemkin's villages, so I suppose I should have felt proud. But strangely enough, I didn't. I _did_ feel incredibly sorry for him, although of course I couldn't put my 'hard nut' image at risk by saying so. Anyway, I've often found sympathy a double-edged sword. It doesn't always help people to cope; often it engenders self-pity rather than strength, and that, it seemed to me, was the last thing Lucas would want. Respect, I thought, would do him more good, and _that_ he deserved.

I half-expected him to be distant with me on the Grid in the days that followed. Certainly, if _I_ had been as open in my feelings towards him I would probably have gone into _purdah_ the next week, or as close to it as you can get on the Grid, out of sheer embarrassment. If anything, Lucas actually seemed _less_ wary around me rather than more, as if that evening had dispelled some of his mistrust. It was perhaps as well that he didn't know that I had spoken to Harry and urged him to switch the surveillance we still had on Lucas to Elizaveta. I didn't really believe any more that Lucas was a traitor. Clearly, his feelings towards Kachimov were still ambivalent, but with the latter pushing up daises in an anonymous suburban cemetery, that no longer constituted a security threat. I _was_ however, still uncertain about the ex-Mrs North. Lucas believed he had convinced her to work for us, but in my opinion he was still emotionally attached to her, and it was colouring his judgement. What was more, she was still vulnerable to FSB pressure. I didn't trust either the FSB, or Lucas's ability to listen to his head rather than his heart.

That minor caveat apart, I certainly couldn't fault his work. He was especially good with the junior officers, for which I was grateful, because 'mentoring' them (bloody stupid word) was one of the privileges of my position that I could have done without. Ben had never quite accepted my reintegration into Section D, and my relationship with Jo had always been strained. The fact that they both liked and admired Lucas took away from me a little of the burden of keeping an eye on them. In fact it was Lucas who quietly mentioned to me that he thought Jo was still having trouble coming to terms with her kidnap and rape, and that it might be affecting her work. Irritably, I snapped at him to tell her to talk to the shrinks. She _should_ have seen them anyway, after being caught in the market bombing. I knew Connie had urged her to do so, something on which, I admit, I should have followed up. I might have been slightly less dismissive if I hadn't been trying to cope with my own personal demons, which, of course, unlike Jo, I never shared. Lucas hadn't mentioned my reaction to his description of his prison conditions, but I knew he must have found it strange. He would have found it even stranger had he known that for several nights afterwards I had been barely able to sleep for worrying about my father. I knew Wormwood Scrubs wasn't bloody Leshanko, but Lucas had inadvertently brought to the forefront of my mind all the guilt and anxiety about him that I usually kept firmly locked away in a sealed compartment at the back. After a fruitless telephone call to my mother who, as usual, hung up the instant she recognised my voice, I sent my father a letter instead. Initially, I had done so once a month, but they were repeatedly returned unopened with _Sender Unknown_ stamped on the envelope, and gradually, I had almost stopped writing. At least he was consistent; with impeccable bad timing, this one had arrived back in my box on the morning Lucas spoke to me about Jo. Angrily, I shredded it, and verbally – and probably unfairly - did the same to him.

Fortunately, in a way, I had distraction ready to hand. Through labyrinthine channels and several cut-outs, we had received an offer of 'contact' – no more – from Al-Qaeda's number three, a man who had drifted across Section D's radar while I was still in Six, a Mohammed Khordad. And it hadn't started well; the intermediary Lucas had gone to meet ended up in hospital with a stab wound. Lucas returned seething, and with a dressing on his hand courtesy of the hired Ukrainian hit man. Fortunately, he also had the SIM-card that enabled us to contact Khordad.

In retrospect, I should have recognised that I had troubles brewing within the team then. Connie irritated Harry by smelling Russian involvement immediately. Her stubbornness about it made me smile, and I couldn't understand why he was so touchy. After all, it was nothing new; Connie saw Russians under every stone, and for all I knew, had spotted KGB officers lurking behind the rubber plants in the cafeteria as well. It was Jo, protesting that we shouldn't be talking to Al-Qaeda at all, who should have set my alarm bells going. That kind of a reaction hinted at one of three things – one: she was still angry over the bombing, two: Lucas was right, or three: even now, after all these years, Jo was still too naïve, and too influenced by Ruth Evershed's moral posturing, to accept Connie's far more realistic assessment of the situation. Exasperated and under pressure, I foolishly ignored her. Instead, I nabbed Lucas.

"Contact Elizaveta," I said quietly. "See if the Russians are involved."

He didn't look happy, and objected that she wasn't a spy. _Another one with bloody moral scruples. _I sometimes wondered how my colleagues developed such a taste for exotic luxuries in this job. I wanted to snap: '_well, she is now_' but instead I quietly but pointedly reminded him, '_No, but she can be manipulated'. _Once he had left, I alerted the two Watchers I had on her and threatened them with dire consequences if they let Lucas see them. Slowly but surely, he and I were really coming to trust each other, but that trust could be destroyed in an instant if he realised that the Service – on my orders – was continuing surveillance on the woman I knew he still thought of as his wife. I was just starting to feel that we might one day be able to work together at least as well as Adam and I had done, and I didn't want anything to spoil the improvement in our working relationship. So I'd pretended not to see the disappointment, tinged with hurt, in his expression when I gave him his instructions. I knew he would much rather have gone with me to meet Khordad than played messenger with Elisaveta, but the terrorist had insisted on Harry's presence. So it was Harry and I, suitably wired and tracked by an array of Malcolm's most sophisticated little devices, who set off to make Mr Khordad's acquaintance.

oOoOoOo

Whatever comments my fellow-officers had made about me over the years – and there'd been a great number of them, many less than complimentary, most of which I wasn't meant to hear – I didn't think many would have accused me of being easily scared. I'd seen a lot in fifteen years in the Service, and it _took_ a lot to turn my stomach to water, but Mohammed Khordad came close. The gorillas he sent out of his makeshift bunker to escort us into his presence, all of them built like fridge-freezers and with lumps under their armpits that were unlikely to be due to bubonic plague, didn't bother me; that kind usually had bulging muscles and shrunken brains and were easily dealt with. Khordad himself was flat-footed, round-shouldered, and wasn't much taller than Harry. He looked more like my bank manager than a terrorist, but when he started speaking, his entire personality altered. A fanatic, yes - but an educated, intelligent one; the most dangerous kind. He never raised his voice, but he spoke with a conviction that I knew wouldn't have altered under any torture you cared to name, and it burned in his eyes, too. Convinced _and_ convincing.

I'd rarely admired Harry more. I knew his every sinew must have been straining to reach across the table and grab Khordad by the throat, but his face never betrayed anything he must have felt. I did try to challenge the man – twice – but it was more out of bravado than anything else; I was afraid that if I didn't I would give away exactly how ill at ease I was. Perhaps he sensed that, because he silenced me with a casual put-down that chilled me with the depth of knowledge he had. I don't think I'd ever mentioned even to Harry that my grandfather had died serving in the International Brigades. Khordad _certainly_ shouldn't have known. Knowledge is power, and Mohammed Khordad knew exactly how to wield that power. By the time we left his little lair I had to make a real effort not to let the quivering I felt inside turn into visible trembling. I wouldn't give the bastard that satisfaction.

It was an enormous relief to get back outside; for once, I had some idea of what Lucas must have felt during his claustrophobia attacks. My personal feelings aside, I did think that, thanks to Harry, the match between them could at least have been called a draw and that, with care and skill, we might eventually be able to win the next leg.

That, though, was before the politicians and the CIA combined to screw us royally, respectively offending and snatching Khordad, and forcing me to send Lucas back to Elizaveta yet _again_ to see whether the FSB was involved. At least this time he didn't argue. I didn't have time to ponder the meaning, if any, of his change in attitude at the time, and after we managed to extract Khordad from the tentacular hospitality of the CIA, I thought Elizaveta's information probably wasn't of immediate importance. Certainly not once Harry's incredible gamble of releasing Khordad paid off and we got the target of the impending attack he'd mentioned. But _then_, of course, Lucas dropped his own personal sodding bombshell on us.

"She said _what_?" I hissed, when Connie explained what Lucas had told her. He seemed to have been deprived of speech, certainly of the ability to sit still; as we all sat in a huddle around the table in the conference room, he prowled round the walls like a tiger trying to decide which of us he'd prefer for lunch. I didn't think it was the claustrophobia this time, because he wasn't agitated in the same way. His face was a mask of concentration; I could almost see his mind sifting the facts, weighing the options, trying to find the safe way out. I didn't think he would have noticed if we'd all got up and left.

Inevitably, it was Connie who coolly summed up the dilemma in her precise, schoolmistress voice, pre-empting me. I sometimes looked at her and saw myself twenty years down the line. _If we stop the bomb, Lucas's cover is blown. The Russians will kill him. If we don't, then dozens of people will die._

I looked at Harry. He would do almost anything to avoid sacrificing Lucas. The ball and chain of guilt about him that he carried around was so real that there were days when I could almost hear it clanking. But he said nothing, so I did.

"Well, that's no choice at all." As I spoke, I saw Lucas's eyes flicker up towards me. Connie had stated the bald facts; I had uttered the unthinkable, and he knew it. I could see it in his face. I waited for a plea or a protest.

_Of course, there's always a third way_.

Harry, Malcolm, Connie and I looked at each other, then at him.

_Make-believe._

oOoOoOo

To say I had my doubts would have been like saying that Harry had a mild dislike of politicians. But both Lucas and I felt better once we had completed evacuation of the targeted restaurant. Now at least we 'only' needed to deceive the Dynamic Duo of Al-Qaeda and the FSB, and we only had two skins left to save – our own. We set about it with a vengeance. The clock was ticking, and so, somewhere in there, was a bomb.

I was preparing the distraction devices and smoke bombs when Lucas found the real one tucked away in a kitchen cupboard. At that point I made a discovery of my own; that I wasn't the only field officer in Section D who used a shield of humour to deflect attention from sweaty palms and a rapid pulse. Lucas looked slyly at me over his shoulder.

"OK, so what are you better at? The real thing, or faking it?"

It was a bloody incongruous setting for sexual innuendo, but when the Grim Reaper's standing a few feet away from you checking his watch, bravura is sometimes the only appropriate response.

"What do _you_ think?" I shot back.

His smile widened, lighting up his face, and I couldn't help responding to it. It was Malcolm who broke the hiatus by instructing us to look for a microwave oven and then heat up the bloody mine. For a second, we looked at each other in disbelief. Then Lucas winked at me, for all the world as if we were still engaged in nothing more dangerous than flirtatious banter.

"OK, Malcolm, so how many minutes does an Italian landmine take on full power?"

_Twenty seconds should do it. _Incredible how long twenty seconds can be. The hand of my watch was creeping inexorably towards ten to three. I closed my eyes. As I did so I thought I felt Lucas's hand grip mine. Then a crashing roar, a wave of heat, and a choking, blinding cloud of dust knocked us both off our feet.

The emergency services needed some convincing – irascibly provided over the phone by Harry - that the two dust-covered, bruised, and slightly dizzy scarecrows they found inside the building really were MI-5 officers on an operation. Even then, they ignored my wheezing coughs of protest that we were fine and had to go, and insisted on '_checking you over_' as they put it, in an ambulance. Lucas had managed to collect a couple of cuts in the face from flying glass, and – I did try, and failed, not to laugh – had a bump on his temple courtesy of a Le Creuset saucepan that had been knocked from a shelf during our fake explosion. A female paramedic, who, for once, seemed completely immune to his charms, cleaned and dressed his wounds while her colleague wrapped me in a red blanket like something out of _Hiawatha,_ and snapped an oxygen mask on me. That was a relief, although I didn't say so; God knows what they put in those bloody firecrackers, but my lungs felt as if someone had just given _me_ twenty seconds on full power.

When each of us was given a plastic cup of tea and left sitting side by side on the ambulance steps like a pair of refugees, Lucas managed a lopsided smile through the dirt smudging his face, and lifted the mask so that I could drink.

"All right?" he asked. I glared, and he laughed. "Yeah, you're all right." He sipped his own tea thoughtfully for a moment. "May I ask you something?"

His expression was suddenly uncertain, and the bantering tone had gone from his voice. I frowned, and tried breathing without the oxygen. It was easier. I loosened the mask. "What?"

"You said '_that's no choice at all'. _If I hadn't suggested this, you'd have sacrificed me, wouldn't you?"

Despite the shrieking of sirens and the honking of horns all around us, it seemed suddenly quiet.

"Yes," I answered. "I would." I watched him nod slowly. "My duty was to stop the bombing and save lives, Lucas. I would never deliberately put any of my team in harm's way. But for the greater good …" I shrugged. "Harry did the same when Adam and I were on the Barrier. It's what the job entails. I'd have said the same had it been Jo, or Ben – or any other member of the team, including myself. Don't take it personally. You're no different from anyone else. We're all equal in that respect."

I thought the last few words sounded harsh and unfeeling, and waited for him to tell me so. Instead, a smile sketched wrinkles in the dirt on his face, as if I'd paid him the warmest of compliments.

"That's all I've ever wanted, Ros." Now, incredibly, he was struggling not to laugh. "Sorry. You've got an oxygen mask-shaped white line all round your mouth, and your nose is as red as that blanket. All you need is a bowler hat and you could join the circus."

He gave a rich, bubbling chuckle that I'd never heard before, and I couldn't help joining in. I suppose it was relief. I could hardly remember the last time I'd really laughed like that – at Oxford, back in the day, on the rare occasions when I went out for a drink with friends. When I had them. I shot a quick, surreptitious glance at Lucas North as the treacherous thought crossed my mind. _Could __we__ be friends?_

"Oof. Sorry." Lucas finally controlled his mirth. "Adrenaline crash." He gave me a quick hug with his free arm, and for a brief minute I let him do it before I shed the blanket and got to my feet. We _were_ still on duty.

"Come on." I looked at my reflection in the ambulance window and grimaced. I looked as grimy as he did. "We both need to clean up. Let's get back to the Grid."

oOoOoOo

I went straight to brief Harry when we got there, but sent Lucas off to shower and sort himself out; he was still looking a bit cross-eyed from his encounter with the saucepan. By the time I'd finished my report, washed and changed my own clothes, most people were leaving or had left the Grid, and there was no sign of him. I asked Harry where he was.

"I let him go home," Harry answered. "He wanted to go and see Elizaveta." He wagged his finger at me. "You too, Ros. Go home and rest. No hanging around here all night. Go on. Shoo."

I shooed, but only as far as my desk. Ben muttered a 'goodnight' as he left; Jo had already gone. I checked my e-mails and then sat back and looked around the half-empty Grid. Today had been a good one. Against all the odds, we'd won a round. God knew about tomorrow. _Time to go_.

I stuck my head round Harry's office door to say goodnight, and found him and Connie having a glass of Scotch together. _Unusual._ I remembered Lucas's comment about Connie being Harry's type. Hurriedly, I swallowed back a smile and went back to shut down my computer. The newsflash came in just as I was getting up.

Just for an instant I thought I saw defeat in Harry's expression, and I certainly heard it in his words. But it was only fleeting, and then he gathered himself as I'd seen him do hundreds of times before. _Call Lucas. Get Jo and Ben back on the Grid._

I nodded, red-flashed the two junior officers and phoned Lucas's mobile. When he answered, I could hear traffic in the background.

"Where are you?" I demanded.

"Vauxhall." His voice was flat. "What is it?"

"Red-flash. We need you back."

There was a long silence. I frowned. "Lucas? Did you hear me?"

"Yeah." He sighed, heavily. "Yeah, I heard."

_What's the bloody matter with him?_ Even allowing for a feeling of anti-climax after the operation, which I had experienced only too often myself, he sounded miserable and depressed. Then I recalled that he'd gone to talk to his ex-wife. _Shit. Don't tell me there's trouble there, too._

"Have you seen Elizaveta?" I enquired. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no, she's fine. In a rush, picking Sasha up on her way home to cook dinner."

_Ah._ Now I understood that what I could hear wasn't a tired irritation at being called back on duty, but personal hurt at realising that he no longer had a place in Elizaveta's life … and never would have again.

My exasperation at the way he was clinging to the past like a little boy who resented growing up warred with my sympathy for his predicament. It had grown, slowly but steadily, ever since that first debriefing session. He'd said himself that in his worst moments in Russia only the thought of Elizaveta had kept him from absolute despair. I'd found it hard enough sometimes facing the void that Adam's death had left me with, but death is an absolute, and at least Adam hadn't actively sought it. In a way, Lucas's situation was far more painful. Elizaveta had made a calculated decision to leave him, and however he might try to justify it, seeing her with a full and happy life must have been in almost unbearable contrast to the emptiness of his own.

"Ros?" I started at his voice and collected myself in a hurry. _What's the bloody matter with you, Myers? _Wallowing in bloody sentimentality _with_ him was hardly going to help. From my own experience, I knew of only one thing that might fill that emptiness – work.

"We've got a problem." I made my tone as crisp and businesslike as I could. "The shit's about to hit the fan." I watched Connie trot from Harry's office, still draining her whisky glass. "I need you, Lucas."

_I'm glad someone does._ The words were murmured so quietly that I thought I might have imagined rather than heard them. Then I heard him clear his throat, and his voice became firmer. "Has anyone eaten?"

"Doubt it," I answered.

"OK. I'll get a couple of frozen pizzas on the way. We can shove them in the microwave." He paused. "Twenty seconds on full power?"

_That's better._ "How about some soup we can heat up as well?" I suggested.

I heard a smile. "Only if you do it. I'm off saucepans."

"That's what friends are for," I said, smugly.

"Yeah, so they say. Fifteen minutes." Lucas hung up. I did likewise, and turned to meet the next crisis.

oOoOoOo

_Thanks for reading; please leave a review! :)_


	7. Chapter 7

_CHAPTER SEVEN_

Everyone held their breath for a while when the Americans got their hands on Khordad. Harry was clearly expecting the worst. He had us on alert virtually around the clock, and even when no reprisal attack occurred, his temper remained on a hair-trigger. At one point he even tore into Ros – loudly, crudely, and in front of a petrified knot of stunned officers. Then he stormed back into his office, slamming the door shut with a violence that caused the walls to quiver, and leaving her, and us, gaping at it.

"You can't blame him." I thought _someone_ ought to break the electric silence. "Khordad will want revenge; surely they're bound to try something."

Ros, her face white and hard, glanced at me and shook her head. "It would have happened by now. Besides, it's not just that." She glared at the others and raised her voice. "Well, what is this, a sodding game of musical statues or something? The show's over!"

The snapped words had a centrifugal effect. Everyone jerked into hurried movement in several different directions, all of them away from Ros. I returned to my own desk; she followed me and pulled up a chair.

"What the hell's biting him?" I murmured, surreptitiously watching Harry, who was now hunched confidentially over his phone, through his office blinds.

"I don't know." Ros picked up a pencil and stabbed it fiercely onto a notepad. "But there's been something on his mind for a while. Remember how he did a disappearing trick during that supposed dry run? And half the time when I talk to him he's only listening with one ear. Distracted. By … shit, I don't bloody _know._" She sounded anxious, which was so uncharacteristic that it caused me to feel apprehensive too. I took a breath to tell her about my suspicion that Harry had lied to me about whatever this bloody mysterious _Sugarhorse_ was. Perhaps it would mean something to her.

"Ros, maybe - " at the very last second I hesitated, and she jumped immediately.

"What? Maybe _what?_"

Her impatience made me gulp back the words. "Maybe we could ask him what the problem is?" I suggested lamely.

Ros rolled her eyes. "Oh, silly old me. Now why ever didn't I think of that? Yeah, let's you and I just stroll in there and have a heart to heart with him over a glass of Glenmorangie, shall we?" She drove the pencil viciously into the pad and threw it into the bin in disgust when the point snapped. "Want me to call the UN, see if they've got a couple of spare Blue Helmets, just in case?"

I shrugged. For Ros, sarcasm was a defensive weapon as much as an offensive one; now it was an indication of how concerned she was. "Just an idea."

"A bloody bad one." She turned as Connie called her name. "Trouble?"

"That depends what you think of as trouble," Connie said, pertly. She handed Ros a sheet of paper. "Reuters, ten minutes ago."

I watched Ros speed-read the article. Her face grim, she handed it to me. _Alexis Meynell in London: Is Your Bank in His Sights?_

"Oh shit," I said. Rumours of this had been circulating for a while. Meynell was known for aggressive speculation and stock-market manipulation, and he specialised in attacking banks. In our current economic circumstances, his sudden appearance in London was the financial equivalent of the arrival of long-lost, estranged family members at the bedside of a fading wealthy relative. "Harry know?"

"Not from me." Connie also turned her gaze towards the office. "But I'll go and impart the good news."

"No!" Ros's tone was so sharp that I glanced at her in surprise and Connie's eyes flashed like newly polished sapphires. "I'll do it."

She walked swiftly to the office. Connie watched her go; once Ros was out of earshot, she tutted disapprovingly.

"Professional distance. She's too close."

"Sorry?" I said, puzzled.

"Rosalind. Far too close to Harry." Connie shook her head. "She needs to remember where she is. He's not her father."

_No, he's not._ Following Ros's cryptic references to her father, I had used some of the time I had been spending on researching eight years of current events to find out something about him. It hadn't taken me long to learn the facts – from leading light of the Diplomatic Service to wealthy and successful businessman, then mastermind of a serious attempt to overthrow the government, and now a guest of Her Majesty in Wormwood Scrubs. What I couldn't understand was how on earth Ros was still in MI-5, and section chief of the Counter-Terrorism Unit to boot, with a background like that, and what I certainly couldn't _do_ was ask her. So I'd made it my business to take Jo and Ben out for a drink one evening after work. Both had been very reluctant to talk about Ros, but since I knew the basic facts about her father, Jo filled me in on the details – Ros's early support for the coup, her later role in stopping it, and how Adam Carter had engineered her transfer to MI-5 from Vauxhall Cross.

"God," I said. "That's one hell of a recruitment policy."

Jo had smiled wistfully. "Adam was unorthodox like that. Harry wasn't convinced, but Adam persuaded him that Ros was too good to be kicked out of the Service in disgrace. Said she deserved a second chance, and in the end, Harry agreed."

"And yet he trusts her completely now, doesn't he?" I thought of Sugarhorse. _More than he does me._

"Oh yeah, now he does." Ben swallowed the remainder of his beer. "Even after that business with Yalta - "

He broke off with an indignant '_Ouch!"_ and glared at Jo, who, I noticed, was looking daggers right back at him.

"Yalta?" I enquired casually. I still hadn't managed to learn from either Harry or Ros why she had been in Russia, and it hadn't even occurred to me that she might have been wandering around the Black Sea.

"Classified," Jo said hastily. "You know."

I didn't, but I mentally filed the issue away for later, and switched back to Sir Jocelyn Myers. "From something she said to me, I got the impression she doesn't see her family much."

In her relief at the change of subject, Jo answered freely. "They turned on her when he was sentenced. Won't have anything to do with her. He won't let her visit, either." She toyed with her glass. "I do feel a bit sorry for her about that. I mean - " she shifted uncomfortably – "she can be a really nasty bitch sometimes, Ros, and after what she did to - " she glanced at Ben and stopped. "Still, it must be rotten, mustn't it, to have no family at all? Adam told me she really worshipped her dad, too. It must be awful to have him locked away in a cell."

I had agreed, offered another drink and dropped the matter. At least now I understood why Ros had reacted so viscerally to my tirade about conditions in Leshanko. _Families mess with your head._ Those hadn't just been empty words. I wished I'd known some of this before; I could perhaps have avoided turning the knife in her wounds.

I stared at the surveillance reports on my screen without seeing them. Connie wasn't wrong about Ros's attitude to Harry, either. I had caught myself thinking that they sometimes behaved more like father and daughter than boss and subordinate. Even when Harry was at his most difficult, Ros would instantly slap down the slightest hint of criticism of him, however justified, and her anxiety about him now seemed more personal than professional.

"_LUCAS!" _For the second time that day Harry's best parade-ground roar made the tea-mugs rattle, shattering my idle reflections which, I realised guiltily, had drifted a long way from the surveillance reports. I span my chair round so fast that I almost threw myself out of it. "Jo, Ben, you too!"

We almost tripped over each other in the rush to the conference room. Malcolm was already there, deep in conversation with Ros. Harry waved us to seats and barked: "Where's Connie?"

There was a nervous mutter of '_don't know, Harry_'.

Harry's eyes narrowed, but he said crisply: "Right. Are you all up to speed about Alexis Meynell?"

Malcolm pulled a face of utter disgust, but Jo and Ben shook their heads uncertainly. Harry turned to Ros, and rapped, "Explain."

Crisply and briefly, she did; outlined Meynell's probable reason for coming personally to London, and explained what he was likely to try and do.

"The banking system's like a bloody house of cards at the moment," I said. "One good shove from him and the whole damned lot could come down."

"Isn't there anything we can do to stop him?" It was Jo.

"We'd need an insider," I observed. "Rock-hard evidence of his shenanigans. You know what the City's like; no government's going to go head-to-head with the likes of Meynell without it."

"We _had_ an insider," Harry cut in grimly. "We turned one of Meynell's staff, and he ended up at the bottom of the Thames."

"Shit." Ben said quietly. "Not much chance of turning anyone else, then?"

"It will have to be an undercover job." Harry drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Meynell Holdings is due for a tax audit. We'll send someone in as a staff member. Observe, get his trust, then betray it."

"You're asking them to run a terrible risk, Harry." Unusually, it was Malcolm. "Meynell's no fool, and he's suspicious to the point of being paranoid. You'll need someone with nerves of steel. _And_ a convincing actor, too."

"I know." There was an apprehensive silence. I met Ros's eyes. _So does she._

"Ros will go in 48 hours from now. Malcolm, work on a legend with her. Make sure her back-story is absolutely watertight; they'll pick it apart. Ben and Jo, there are no outside mobiles allowed in Meynell Holdings, so I want you to work out methods of covert contact; clear them with Malcolm and Ros. Lucas," he turned to me, "you and I are going to talk to the Chancellor and make sure she knows what's going on and what will be required of her. This man is as big a threat to national security as any suicide bomber, and he could cause just as much harm if we don't stop him. So we will. Is that understood by everyone?" There was a hesitant series of nods. "Good. Remember there's a great deal at stake here." He gestured to me to remain where I was as the others left. Ros hadn't moved; she was studying her hands on the table in front of her as if she had nothing more to worry about than whether or not her nail varnish was chipped.

Harry slid the conference room door to. "Lucas, we think that Meynell may be zeroing in on Highland Life. I'm going to ask the Chancellor to come here first thing tomorrow morning, and I want you to get a presentation together – everything we have about what Meynell's done in the past and our previous … attempt … to infiltrate his operations. She's a politician, and she suffers from the politician's disease of commitment allergy. I want no loopholes she can wriggle out of, no way she can do a Pontius Pilate on us. Frighten her if you have to, but make it good. Any questions?"

I swallowed and then bit the bullet. "Malcolm's right, Harry. Wouldn't it – could I not go in this time?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ros's head snap up.

"Your concern is appreciated, Lucas, but Ros is the most appropriate person to manage Alexis Meynell," Harry said firmly. "Now, are you clear on what I need from you?"

"Clear," I answered reluctantly. Harry nodded in satisfaction.

"Good. Then get on with your jobs. I have some phone calls to make." He left the room.

It was a good thing I didn't have a pin with me, because if I'd dropped it I could have deafened the pair of us. At last, I said: "You do realise _why_ you're the 'most appropriate person'?"

"I can't imagine," Ros said sardonically, as she got to her feet.

I bridled at her flippancy. "And you're perfectly bloody comfortable with that?"

She raised an ironic eyebrow. "_Comfortable? _This isn't some kind of New Age _Find Your Inner Self_ retreat, Lucas. This is my job."

I gritted my teeth. "But you should have back-up. Meynell is - "

She cut me off. "Alexis Meynell is a greedy, arrogant, egotistical bully. I've met his ilk before. Trust me, I can deal with him. You handle your side of the operation properly and I'll have all the back-up I need." She held my gaze for a moment and then sighed. "Did you have someone holding your hand when you flew into Moscow?"

"That's different," I said stubbornly. "You're a - "

Her face tightened. "An MI-5 officer. Your _superior_ officer. So do as you're bloody well told, Lucas."

She span on her heel, threw a defiant glare at me over her shoulder, and without another word, stalked out.

oOoOoOo

Harry was proved right about the reaction of the Chancellor, Gillian Caldwell. She was clearly very unwilling to sanction any attempt to shut down Alexis Meynell's operations without incontrovertible proof of what he was doing, but when he started a rumour campaign against Highland Life, pressure from Harry and pleas from the bank's chairman forced her hand. In her identity as Jenny Hunter, tax accountant, Ros was instructed to obtain the proof we needed, and then the waiting started, during which I tried not to dwell on the extent to which she must have been risking her neck in order to get her hands on it.

Her copy of Meynell's SIM card proved infuriatingly useless at almost the same moment as Francis Denham, the bank chairman, took his own life. Within the hour, Harry had dispatched me to Meynell's offices to meet Ros and to hell with roundabout communication; the pressure of time justified the risk, he said.

When Ros came down to reception you wouldn't have thought she was running any risk at all. She looked perfectly composed, despite the fact that Alexis Meynell himself was fewer than ten yards behind her. She gave me a flirtatious smile that contrasted sharply with the alert concentration in her eyes, and a warm kiss, under cover of which I quickly brought her up to speed. I saw a fleeting shadow in her eyes, and when she introduced her 'fiancé' to Meynell, my sense of foreboding about her position increased exponentially. She kicked his comment about her lack of an engagement ring into touch expertly, but it didn't seem to lessen his suspicions. Trying to disarm them, I accepted his invitation to the launch of his foundation; it would offer us another, desperately-needed opportunity to break through the security around his inner circle, _and_ I would be able to keep an eye on Ros. She was no shrinking violet, but Meynell's part-hostile, part-proprietorial attitude towards her made my skin crawl. He was twice her size, and under the cold politeness I recognised barely-controlled violence. The presence of Jenny's 'fiancé' might help to cool his ardour.

However, when I picked Ros up later, I realised instantly that she had thwarted any protective intentions I might have entertained; she had changed into an elegant black halter-neck cocktail dress and high heels. Meynell's eyes followed her greedily around the room – which was no doubt exactly what she intended. He didn't even notice when we lifted his wallet. Ben vanished with his security pass and I stood with Ros half-listening to Meynell's address. I didn't expect him to get much of a reception – after all, this wasn't an audience known for its charitable generosity – but he seemed to have them under his spell. Incredibly, even Ros seemed genuinely impressed.

"You have to hand it to him, he's got _something._" She finished her champagne and looked up at me. "Give me a minute alone with him."

I opened my mouth to argue, but although her lips were still curving invitingly, there was steel in her eyes. The buzzing of my mobile swung it her way, and reluctantly I went out of the room to take Ben's call, noticing the seductive smile that Ros gave Meynell as he joined her. I snapped the phone open, determined to get back to her as soon as I could. She too had seen those pictures of our last agent – taken in the morgue - but whereas to me Meynell was a threat, Ros saw him as a challenge to her successful completion of the operation. And risk or no risk, I knew she was determined to do whatever was necessary to meet it. I was equally determined that she wouldn't have to.

"Ben. What have you got?"

oOoOoOo

Those five words and the one Ben gave me in return – _Salma_ – changed the course of the operation and sent the speed of it into overdrive - in my case, literally, since they sent me racing in Ros's car straight back to the Grid. The revelation that Highland Life had been kept afloat by a loan from the Russian mafia, and was now to be sunk by a demand for its immediate repayment, joined all the dots at once. At Meynell's cocktail I had noticed a runtish, sallow-faced little man watching me. He had seemed vaguely familiar. The word _Salma_ had helped me put a name to the face. _Asa Darlak_, heir apparent to the biggest Mafia Don in Moscow. I told Harry as much. He face turned grey.

"Did he recognise you?"

I shrugged. "I think so."

"With Ros." His fist thwacked into the palm of his other hand. "Where is she?"

I had no idea, so we broke our own comms protocol, and Harry phoned her mobile and asked her.

_Meynell's hotel room. _Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the strain was audible.

"Are you all right?"

A taut, hoarse '_yeah' _that I knew instinctively wasn't true. My stomach knotted. I glanced at Harry, but he avoided my eyes.

"Can we continue with the operation?"

_I think so._ There was a second's hesitation in which her quick, shallow breathing hissing from the loudspeaker was the only sound in the room. Then she began to issue instructions, swiftly and decisively, as if she were sitting at her own desk. When she had finished, she clicked the call off without ceremony.

"Is she _insane_?" Gillian Caldwell breathed.

I wanted to shout at her, '_No, she's alone, she's in danger, and God only knows what she's had to do to save your useless politician's hide' _but Harry's eyes were on me, so I said nothing. When the Chancellor eventually left, he sent Jo and Ben home, then called me into his office.

"Harry, can't we for God's sake get her out of there?" I pleaded.

He looked at me sympathetically. "Ros will cope, Lucas."

"She's not a bloody robot, Harry!" I exploded.

He rubbed his hands over his face. "No, she's a very fine, loyal, brave officer, _and_ - " raising his voice as I made to interrupt again, "and as of now the success of this operation is entirely in her hands. It _has_ to come first. Of all people, Ros Myers will understand and accept that." He gave a weary sigh. "Sometimes this job requires us to do unpalatable things. Or to ask _others_ to do them." He looked directly at me, and abruptly changed both his tone and the subject. "Lucas, I have a confession to make." I stared at him, bewildered. "When I told you I didn't know anything about _Sugarhorse_ I was lying."

_I know that._ The knowledge had been gnawing away at me for some time, like an acid insidiously corroding the fragile trust in him that I had slowly been trying to rebuild. We stared at each other.

"What is it?" I asked.

I was prepared for him to be less than frank with me. But it was one twist of the knife too far when he _still_ insisted that I try and remember in exactly what circumstances Captain Tukhachevskaya had questioned me about _Sugarhorse _and precisely what she'd said. Bile rose up in my throat. He had never asked me about it directly – he'd been bloody careful to avoid _that_, I thought bitterly – but he must know the details of what had been done to me in Russia. Ros would have told him, as she would have reported my bouts of claustrophobia and insomnia, the flashbacks, and my battle to suppress the memories. Yet even knowing that, he was _still_ demanding that I take myself back to them … for some amorphous Greater Good. The same damned shabby excuse that justified ordering Ros to risk her life and had prevented him from even noticing that Jo Portman was slowly succumbing to a trauma he'd probably long forgotten about. _You sanctimonious bloody bastard._ The festering boil of resentment against him that I had carried since my return finally burst open in a torrent of bitterness.

_There are limits to what you can ask of people, Harry._ It cost me a mighty effort even to keep my voice under control. _Even in our job._ I yanked the office door open and stormed out. Behind me, I thought I heard him apologise, but there was a vicious buzzing in my ears and I wasn't sure. Worse, I didn't care. Anger and revulsion at the callousness of his request had driven out both reason and understanding.

I was still in a furious temper when I reached home. I took a shower to try and calm myself down, but since I had, as always, to be careful to keep the spray clear of my face and head, even that wasn't without its tormenting memories. When my mobile buzzed I rushed to it, praying it might be Ros, but at the sight of Elizaveta's number I switched the call to voicemail. She was as angry with me for using her as I was with Harry, and in my current mood I couldn't face her hostility. I stared out into the now darkened street and wondered helplessly where Ros was. Nobody but Harry knew which safe-house she was using, and by trying to phone her mobile I could expose her to even more danger. There was _nothing_ I could do – about anything – until the final phase of the operation in the morning, other than go to bed and try to get some rest.

Inevitably, the poisonous cauldron of anger, frustration, hurt and worry bubbling in my mind doomed the attempt to failure. My head was throbbing and I didn't seem to be able to get comfortably warm however deep I burrowed under the duvet. When I did occasionally drift off it was only to blunder through a tangled mesh of nightmares where Ros and Meynell battled for supremacy with Elizaveta, Harry, and flashbacks to my interrogation sessions with Captain Tukhachevskaya. Usually they were horrific images, soundless and somehow all the more terrifying for it, like a silent horror film, but this time there was a jumbled babble of sound in the background, distorted and echoing like a poor-quality surveillance tape. ' _Rasskazhi mnyeh … palomnik .. shto takoye palomnik?' _

I woke up to the sound of my own voice screaming, unsure whether the sound came from the present or the past, jerked upright and sat for a moment with my head in my hands, trying to regulate my galloping heart rate. When I could breathe normally again, I rolled over and reached for the pen and notepad I always kept by the bed. My hands were still trembling, and the letters were shaky and ill-formed, but I wrote it down.

_Palomnik. _Pilgrim.

oOoOoOo

_Thank you for reading! Can you spare two extra minutes for a review? :)_


	8. Chapter 8

_CHAPTER EIGHT_

By the time I got back to the safe house, the fear I hadn't dared to allow myself to feel in Alexis Meynell's hotel room had combined with physical revulsion and self-disgust so strong that I felt sick. I had opened the taxi window as wide as I could despite the chill, but I could still smell and taste the bastard on my skin, in my hair and on my dress, which was now crumpled and stained. Every time I thought of him my stomach heaved, and even worse – and hideously more visible – my eyes were burning too. I kept trying to dab them with the ends of my stole, but eventually the driver's concern outweighed his natural British mind-your-own-business reticence.

"You all right, love?"

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks." I forced a smile. "Few too many and a row with the boyfriend. You know how it is."

I all but ran to the flat, desperate not to cause a scene in the street and attract the public attention that was every MI-5 officer's nightmare. I made it inside, but the bedroom was my undoing. I heard a strangled wail that didn't even sound like me as I flung my wrap and bag onto the bed, bolted for the bathroom and wrenched the taps on. As the water gushed into the bath I savagely tore the dress off, ripping the material in the process, and hurled it as far from me as I could. Then I kicked my shoes after it, removed my underclothes and scrambled into the steaming water.

_You will not cry, Myers. _I snatched up the soap and a sponge and started to scour myself. _You will_ _not._This operation was still live, and only I could make sure we ended it by bringing down Alexis Meynell. He could smell weakness the way a trained dog can sniff out explosives, and if he were to detect any in me the following day, we'd be finished. The gloves were off now. He knew who and what I was, and the only weapon I had left was my ability to deceive. If it proved to be insufficient, the operation would be dead in the water.

_Yeah, and so might you be,_ I thought, recalling the fate of our previous agent. I scrubbed harder, as much to erase _that_ from my mind as the traces of Meynell's hands and lips from my skin. I'd have back-up. Ben would be there, and I knew that Lucas would rather O.D on caffeine than move from the coffee stand downstairs tomorrow. I almost smiled at the thought of how protective he'd suddenly become. Somewhere under the urbane charm, there was a streak of caveman hidden in Lucas North. Normally, I would have been riled by it, but this time I couldn't help being touched. It steadied my nerves, too; I hated to admit it even to myself, but Meynell scared the shit out of me. I shuddered involuntarily, ran in some fresh hot water and slithered deeper into it. It wasn't just the raw, violent rage that I'd seen in him when Darlak had called. That was frightening – I'd seen it cow a room full of cocksure financial traders, after all - but it was manageable. It was the man's perspicacity that really alarmed me; long _before _that call he'd already begun to detect and read the signs of deception. _There's a look that you have … someone who's part of a system but doesn't really belong to it. _That might have applied to Jenny Hunter; it _certainly _applied to Ros Myers. I was using it to trick him into believing that I really _was _on his side, and so far it seemed to be working. But if he should see through that too …

_He won't. _I had spoken out loud. I washed my hair under the shower and rinsed myself off thoroughly. My skin was red, stinging and sore from the vicious scouring I'd given myself, but at least the heavy aroma of eucalyptus-scented soap oozing from my pores had finally defeated the odour of Meynell. Now I needed to get him out of my mind, too – at least long enough to catch a few hours sleep. I took the duvet and a pillow into the sitting room. I wasn't going to do a Lucas and spend the night on the floor, but I knew that if I got into that bed, Meynell would be in it with me. So I curled up on the sofa instead and set the alarm on my phone for seven. Then I turned my back on it and resisted the urge to ring Harry and check that everything would be in place for tomorrow. _Stop being such a cowardly hypocrite, Myers._ _Since when do you need to backstop Harry Pearce?_ The only _need_ I had was my own – to talk to him and draw on his strength and support before I had to face Meynell down again in the morning. Solitude had never bothered me – usually my own company was the only kind I felt truly at ease in – but right now it was a burden. Even Lucas's bloody fussing would have been a welcome companion.

_Tomorrow. If – when – we've got the bastard. When I've had the unmitigated pleasure of bringing him as low as he's just done me. _I could feel a slow tide of sleep lapping at the aches of tension in my body. I turned my face into the sofa cushions and let it have its way.

oOoOoOo

When I arrived at the office the following day Meynell's attitude to me seemed unchanged – part suspicious, part intrigued. His surly little sidekick clearly wasn't happy with my presence and said so, but Meynell waved him to silence. For the first few moments it looked as if the plan was going to succeed.

_I've had enough of this._ It was only when the little runt said that and pulled out a pistol that I realised my error. Throughout the operation I had been so focused on manipulating Meynell that I had overlooked him. Darlak had seemed to me mildly ridiculous with his theatrical glares and over-precise English. If I'd considered him at all, I thought of him as Meynell's pawn, an obedient little puppy eagerly fetching and carrying in expectation of an occasional approving pat on the head. Only now was his _real_ clout apparent. I kept my gaze on Meynell and my breathing steady as he put the gun to my head.

_Do as he says. _Meynell's voice was flat, dead almost. _Call them._

I only had time to tell Harry where I was and with whom before Darlak interrupted with his sixty-second ultimatum. I could guess at the frantic activity that his words would have triggered on the Grid, and I could only pray that it included getting Ben and Lucas here fast.

_You have thirty seconds to withdraw the announcement and pay out._ My heart was racing, but I kept my eyes riveted on Meynell, who stared back at me with a languid curiosity; he might have been watching an insect struggling to release itself from a piece of flypaper.

_You have fifteen seconds._

His face swam in the film of tears that had welled into my eyes and were slowly beginning to spill over. My skin felt clammy from cold sweat, and my throat was constricted with terror. I don't think I could have spoken at all had not Harry's voice, roughened by his anxiety, rasped from the loudspeaker. _Ros! Ros, are you all right?_

"Harry, there is no gun." My voice was at breaking point, but just for the second I needed, pure hatred of the two men with me gave me strength. "Release the statement, because there is no gun."

I heard Darlak's shriek of fury as he grabbed my hair and slammed my head down onto a table, but louder still was Meynell's roar of '_No_!' as he launched himself at his hatchet-man and snatched the gun from his hand. That was all I needed. All my fear and fury exploded. I sprang up, knocking Darlak off-balance, and wrenched the gun from Meynell's grasp.

A series of thuds and a clanging crash came from behind me as I pointed the gun straight at Asa Darlak. I kept it trained on him as I risked a glance towards Lucas and Ben. Ben looked shocked and bewildered; the look Lucas threw towards the Russian mafioso was murderous.

"You all right?" he asked me.

"Fine." I turned the gun on Meynell.

_Ros! Ros, are you there? ROS! _I had never heard panic in Harry's voice before. Still, I didn't take my eyes off Alexis Meynell.

"I'm fine, Harry." On Meynell's desk, a tinny voice was reporting a steady rise in the Highland Life share price.

"The system is rotten. You know it has to change." There was something almost petulant in Meynell's voice. Pleading, too, as if, even now, he still truly believed that I would go round to his side of the bloody desk and make common cause with him.

I could see the barrel of the gun beginning to quiver as the energy drained from me. My legs felt weak, and spots were starting to obscure my vision. If I _was _going to faint, I'd be damned if I'd do it in front of a robber baron with a good sob story and a short-arsed thug from the gutters of Moscow.

"I have a duty to the British state." I turned, handed the gun to Ben, and strode to the door, Lucas on my heels. I glared at both of them.

"You two should work out more." I don't think it was my most convincing put-down; I was shaking, and could barely get the words out. I shoved the door open, but when Lucas followed me through I stopped.

"No. You stay here, wait for the police, and see them arrested."

He put a hand gently on my arm. "Ros, you need to rest."

I shook it off. "I've done my part. It's your responsibility now. _Go back in there. _That's an order, Lucas. "

With obvious reluctance, he obeyed. The corridor was out of focus, but I saw the sign I needed - a toilet for the disabled. I was vaguely aware of suits emerging from their offices, but I couldn't hear what any of them were saying. I turned into the toilet, sank rubber-legged to the floor and passed out.

oOoOoOo

I sneaked out under cover of the noisy chaos when the police arrived, phoned Harry and drove straight to the Grid. In the car park, I found him waiting for me by the lift. He beamed at me.

"Well done, Rosalind. Outstanding work." Then his voice softened. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am," I answered, but my voice caught.

"Of course you are," Harry echoed. He put his arm round my shoulders until I mumbled "OK," and then gave me a gentle shake. "I suggest you go and shower, change, and then come and brief me." His eyes twinkled. "Mr Johnnie Walker and Mr Smirnoff will be joining us."

I did as he suggested, deliberately changing into jeans and a shirt that 'Jenny Hunter' would never have worn. Lucas, I saw, had jettisoned 'Pete' in the same way, and was back in jeans and a sweater.

"Well done," he said, when I came in. "Going to Meynell's hotel room alone?" His eyes were admiring. "Don't think many people could have done that."

His words reminded me of something. Harry was approaching, but there was no sign anywhere of Jo Portman.

"Has anyone spoken to Jo?" I asked.

"I was just about to." Harry looked thoroughly uncomfortable at the prospect, and when I offered to do it instead, he accepted with obvious relief.

I took the photographs of Boscard's body up to the roof. I'd been derelict in my duty towards Jo Portman. I'd shrunk from venturing into the minefield of her trauma for fear of the kind of tearful gush of emotions that froze me into wordless embarrassment. But I _had_ to try now. We were as different as two women could be, and I had offered of my own volition what had been brutally taken from her. But for all their admiration and sympathy, Lucas and Harry could never really understand how we both felt now. Perhaps we could console each other.

I tried to convey that to Jo and offer her the chance to talk if she wanted to. I suppose I only had myself to blame for the fact that she didn't. I'd never been the sort of person anyone willingly confided in - never tried to be. So ironically, now that, for once, _I_ longed to confide in someone, I was reaping the harvest of the seeds of unsociability I'd been sowing all my life. Jo thanked me, politely but distantly, for what I'd told her, and then turned back to the view over the city.

"How is she?" Harry asked when I returned downstairs.

"Give her time. She'll be all right," I said tiredly.

He looked keenly at me. "You're worn out, Ros. Go home now. Lucas and I will tie up the loose ends."

I didn't argue. My awkward, blundering failure to empathise with Jo had added a familiar feeling of alienation to my exhaustion, and a weary inability to continue being strong and brave and in command … for the moment. So I left the muted triumph in the Grid, and exchanged Thames House for the more manageable solitude of my flat.

oOoOoOo

I knew I was still too wound-up to sleep, so I didn't try. Instead, I put on an old Oxford University sweatshirt and tracksuit pants, dimmed the lights and lay on the sofa listening to Faure's Requiem. When my mobile interrupted the haunting beauty of the _In Paradisum _with a noisy buzzing, I snatched it up furiously.

"Ros?" Lucas sounded slightly breathless. "Have you eaten?"

I hadn't; even though I was hungry, I hadn't had the energy to contemplate cooking, and I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to order a takeaway either.

"No, Lucas," I said irritably. "I'm not really in the mood for a gourmet restaurant tonight."

"You don't have to be," he answered. "I dropped in at one and bought some takeaway."

I frowned. "Where _are_ you?"

I heard a rustling noise and a muttered Russian curse. "Downstairs outside your block." Now there was a clatter. "Failing to balance two Thai meals, the phone and an umbrella. Ros," now his voice became cajoling, "it's raining out here. Please?"

Thai food was my favourite. _How the hell did he know that? _

"Hang on." I went into the hall, buzzed him in and opened the door. A few seconds later he bounced up the stairs, a precarious pile of white plastic boxes in his arms and the umbrella held in his teeth.

"Curry's leaking," he mumbled through a mouthful of wet plastic.

"So are you!" I shot back as he dropped the dripping umbrella into my hands, spattering me with water. He grinned, and went past me in a wafting scent of green curry that made my mouth water. I locked the door and followed him into the kitchen.

"I thought we could celebrate saving the British economy," he said. "Got some plates? I think it's still hot, and I'm starving."

"Did I actually invite you round?" I asked. I wasn't going to tell him how idiotically glad I was to see him.

He started opening the boxes. "You know the Service encourages us to show initiative, Ros." He put his head on one side like a sparrow eyeing a picnic sandwich. "Besides, I might have succumbed to malnutrition before you did."

For form's sake, I muttered something about that not being likely while there were still doughnuts in the world, and got out plates and cutlery.

"I've only got red wine," I said ungraciously. "If you'd _told _me - "

"Ta-da!" He pulled two large bottles of Tsingtao beer from his pockets with a flourish and a smug smile.

"Cold?" I enquired waspishly.

"Well, wet, anyway." I laughed too; I couldn't help it.

"Here," I said. "I'll open them. Take it into the sitting room."

I followed him with the beer and a tray, and did a double take at the array of dishes he had spread on the coffee table. "Did the JIC declare a famine emergency since lunchtime or something?"

"No, but the FO's been trying to boost trade with Asia." He pulled a face. "Does it count if the shop's in Wimbledon?"

I tutted mockingly, handed him a bottle and waved him to the sofa. "Make yourself comfortable."

He sat down, and, with a yelp, pulled something out from underneath himself. "Oh shit, sorry. I hope it - " he stared, and I felt myself turn scarlet. "What's this?"

"A scale model of the prototype for Concorde," I snapped. We started helping ourselves as he set the furry toy owl to one side. I kept my eyes on the food. "Present from Adam. I used to collect them once. He knew."

I was afraid he would laugh at me, but he merely looked intrigued. "Owls? Are you interested in birds, then?"

"Not that way." I explained: that as a child owls had frightened me. "My nurse, she was an Aymara Indian. She gave me a woven one, filled with beans, to help take away the fear. I suppose it started a trend. My father had a local artisan carve one, then he started bringing them home whenever he went on a trip or was moved to a new post. I had quite a collection in the end, glass, carved, toy ones, jewellery. It did the trick, I got quite fond of owls."

"Aymara? " Lucas helped himself to noodles. "Was that when your dad was in Lima?"

I carefully took a long swallow at my beer. "You looked him up then?" When he looked uneasy, I managed a smile. "It's all right, Lucas. I'd have done exactly the same in your place."

"Yeah." He toyed with his food for a moment. "I ... we work together and … well, I just wanted to know a bit more about you." He hesitated. "Sorry. It must be hell. If I'd known, I wouldn't have - "

"You didn't." I cut him off quickly. The last thing I wanted from him on this particular matter was sympathy. "It's not important. We all lose our fathers, sooner or later. I just lost mine sooner. Pass the rice, please." As he leaned across to do so I spotted fresh cuts and grazes on his knuckles, and gratefully jumped at the chance to change the subject. "What happened, did you mug someone for their noodles?"

He grimaced. "No, I decked Asa Darlak." My jaw dropped. "He tried to make a run for it. Ben grabbed him and I hit him. _Svoloch._"

"That's not exactly by the book," I pointed out.

He coloured. "Yeah, well maybe Darlak reads different books from us. Anyway, it was my fault; it was me he recognised, and that was what blew your cover."

I shook my head. "I think Meynell suspected long before. Darlak just confirmed it." I told him what Meynell had said about my not belonging to the system I worked in.

Lucas shrugged. "Random probing."

"No." I chewed slowly on a mouthful of curry. "He's intelligent, Lucas. Sensitive with it. He's not just one more pig with his snout in the trough."

Lucas looked at me curiously. "You sound as if you almost sympathise with him."

"With his views. I think I did, sometimes."

His expression combined disgust with bewilderment. "But Ros … after what he did - "

"I know. I know." I told him what Meynell had told me; about his childhood in Prague, his father's reaction to the post-revolution changes, his own loathing of the rampant capitalism that had brought them about. "He has a point."

Lucas snorted. "Lots of people have a _point_." He told me about Malcolm, and his fear of losing his life savings in the Highland Life Bank. "There would have been millions like him if Meynell had had his way."

I finished what was on my plate and sighed. "Yeah, I know. Maybe he was right … about me not really belonging. I've never been very good at toeing the party line. Fitting in." My own words surprised me. Had I not known from living in Bangkok that Tsingtao was one of the weakest beers available, I would have blamed _it_ for making me so loquacious. There was something about Lucas that seemed to untie the knots in my tongue that had made me so hopeless with Jo. It was unnerving, and at the same time strangely comforting. _I must be going soft._

"Listen." Lucas reached across the debris of boxes and chopsticks strewn over the table and slid both hands round mine. I almost recoiled, but then made myself look at him and saw warm, smiling blue eyes rather than the cold, obsidian stare of Meynell's. "Bugger Comrade Meynell and the Dalek. Have you got any green tea?" I nodded. "Then why don't you make some, I'll find a good DVD, and we'll just be a pair of idle slobs for the rest of the evening?"

It sounded like the paradise King's College Choir had been singing about. I hadn't realised just how much I didn't want to be alone. "Like you are during the day, you mean?" I got up to make the tea.

We spent the next few hours side by side on the sofa watching old episodes of _Yes Minister._ I hadn't seen them in years; my TV diet these days was largely made up of news broadcasts. Lucas remembered the series from the years before his arrest in Russia, and he laughed at it so uproariously that his mirth infected me too. When MI-5 was called in to deal with the Foreign Minister's dalliance with the 'shady lady from Argentina', we both collapsed in paroxysms of helpless giggles.

"God," I said, when the episode ended with one of Sir Humphrey's Machiavellian 'solutions' to the Minister's problems, "just imagine Harry's face if that happened to us."

Lucas smiled, but rather absent-mindedly. I frowned. "What?"

"Harry," he said, then uncertainly: "You know how you said you thought he was hiding something?" I nodded, but still he hesitated.

"Spit it out, Lucas," I prompted.

It was a question of dribble rather than spit, but at last he told me – about the mysterious '_Sugarhorse', _his own recollection of the code-name '_palomnik,' _and Harry's reaction when Lucas had found, and given him, the _Palomnik_ file. I was stunned, all the more so since Harry hadn't once mentioned any '_Sugarhorse'_ to me.

"Did Harry ask you to tell me all this?" I asked. He shook his head. "Then why did you?"

He licked his lips nervously. "Because I think he's in serious trouble, and the Russians are involved somehow." He looked at the floor for a moment. "I – I know what I've said about him, but … knowing how they work …" He trailed off and looked at me. "And because Harry trusts you, more than any of us. So do I."

_That's one hell of a change of heart._ I looked for mockery in his expression and found none. Lucas obviously felt I needed more convincing.

"Ros, you once told me Harry would rather die than let anything happen to me. Well, I feel the same way about him."

There was no denying the intensity with which he spoke. I hadn't been in the Service for fifteen-odd years without learning how to distinguish sincerity from a bloody good act. Suddenly, I remembered the tirade to which I had subjected Harry when he'd been unable to get my father's prison sentence reduced after the coup attempt. He'd been understanding about that, forgiven me for Yalta … the only news I ever received about my father came _through_ Harry, from the Governor of Wormwood Scrubs, with whom he'd served in the Army. No-one could ever replace my father, but Harry Pearce had come close. It would take me a lifetime – minimum – to repay my debt to him.

I met Lucas's eyes and remembered how I had wondered if we could become friends. He'd risked a stinging rebuff in coming here tonight and offering me the companionship he'd sensed I needed but would never be able to ask for. And I knew it was for me, not to prevent him escaping, that he'd flattened Asa Darlak.

"Did you read the _Palomnik _file?" I asked.

He nodded. "Skimmed it."

"And you remember?"

A slight smile brushed his lips. I smiled back and poured half the beer remaining in my bottle into his.

"Tell me what it said."

oOoOoOo

_Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review!_


	9. Chapter 9

_CHAPTER NINE_

I was still wondering when I left Ros's flat whether I had done the right thing in burdening her with the enigma of _Sugarhorse_. All I'd really achieved was to offload part of my own anxiety about Harry onto her. Belatedly realising that I'd been selfish – especially after her recent ordeal – I'd stuttered an apology that she had cut short.

"Don't be an idiot. You were right to tell me." She had made a pot of coffee and we had sat for well over an hour trying to piece together the disparate clues we had. I thought Ros looked dreadfully tired, but she was like a terrier hunting a rat in a situation like this, and she just threw me a scornful look when I suggested that she might need to rest.

"Stop flapping. We need to think." She reached to refill her coffee cup and muttered in disgust at the two reluctant drips that emerged from the pot.

"I'll make some more," I said, in response to her expectant look. I washed our dirty supper things up while I was waiting for the coffee, but when I returned to the sitting room I found Ros's exhaustion had finally got the better of her. She was fast asleep, and I knew that she was unlikely to stir now unless I woke her.

Quietly, I went across the hall and opened the only closed door. Then I stared in sheer amazement. The rest of Ros's flat was furnished in a style that I thought of as 'minimalist chic' – neutral colours, straight lines and sharp edges. The bedroom was in complete and unexpected contrast. Fluffy sheepskin rugs were scattered over the floor. Long, deep crimson curtains framed the windows, and a quilt cover on the bed bore a bright, intricate geometric pattern that I thought was probably Peruvian. A rocking chair, of all things, stood alongside the bed, and at the foot of it was an ottoman draped with a thick black and white striped, woven blanket.

I was stunned. I could have been in a different house altogether. A _rocking chair?_ I couldn't imagine the Ros Myers I knew sleeping here. The whole room was cosy, warm, pretty … all the things I might have associated with Elizaveta, but never, _ever_ with Ros.

_Never judge a book by its cover, Lucas._ It was one of my father's favourite rebukes. He had also taught me it was rude to stare, and I shook myself back into movement. I picked up the cushion from the rocking chair, and threw the blanket from the ottoman over my arm. I was just about to leave when the chest of drawers on the far side of the room caught my eye. Two large photographs stood on the top: one of a laughing Adam Carter, perched on a wall somewhere, and the second of a younger Ros, maybe in her early twenties, smiling awkwardly. She stood with her arm entwined with that of a well-dressed, short man with sharp blue eyes. From my reading of articles in the papers, I recognised Sir Jocelyn Myers.

_I've only ever loved two men in my life. He was one of them._ Suddenly, I realised just how much I was intruding. This was _private_ Ros, the one she never allowed anyone else to see. It was as if she'd taken the softer, warmer part of her personality and hidden it away deliberately behind this firmly closed door where no-one else could guess at its existence. I knew for certain that with the possible exception of Adam Carter, nobody but Ros had ever set foot in here.

I closed the door and slipped back to the living room. Carefully, I draped the blanket over Ros and eased the cushion behind her head. She mumbled something and snuggled deeper under the blanket and deeper into sleep. Thankful for the photographic memory that had enabled me to memorise her security codes after a fleeting glance, I had slipped out of the flat. _Sugarhorse_ could wait until tomorrow.

oOoOoOo

In fact, it had to wait for almost two weeks. When I suggested to Ros that we confront Harry about it, she vetoed the idea instantly. _His decision_, she snapped. _We wait._

The waiting finally ended on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, when Harry explained what _Sugarhorse _was. Ros's face was completely impassive; you would have thought she'd never heard of the word. I felt myself go cold at Harry's assertion that the operation had been considered utterly secure '_until recently'_'. I leaned towards him.

"Until I told you the Russians had interrogated me about it."

The implication of that was shatteringly clear. For me it was a sickeningly personal blow too. It meant that someone, one of our own, had not only betrayed the Service but also delivered me, like a gift-wrapped parcel, into the hands of the Russians. I felt Ros's eyes on me.

"Yes," Harry confirmed. His expression was tense. "I'm expecting intel from Moscow. When it comes, I will be able to expose a mole within MI-5." He paused for a beat. "I'll need your support."

He made it a flat statement, but somehow it still sounded like what it was: an appeal. I responded quickly.

"Whatever you need, Harry."

"Anything at all," Ros added quietly.

"Thank you." Harry sighed. "Now the bad news."

Ros and I exchanged glances. _Wasn't that it?_

Harry smiled wryly. "Alas, no. You'll be delighted to know that our government has decided to take the lead in tackling the consequences of yesterday's … unfortunate incident … in the Middle East."

Ros groaned; she was clearly ahead of me. Harry looked sympathetically at her.

"Sorry, Ros. Emergency peace conference, convening in 72 hours. Preliminary co-ordination with the JIC in … twenty minutes."

Ros's face was like thunder. She muttered something about the Middle East and the Marianas Trench, got to her feet and strode out. I looked at Harry.

"Harry, about _Sugarhorse - _"

"Not now, Lucas." He nodded outside to where Ros was beckoning impatiently to me. "Multitasking is over-rated. Let's handle this hot potato first."

oOoOoOo

The potato got a great deal hotter when, two days later, Ros's call interrupted my attempts to settle the UN negotiator, Claude Denizet, into his hotel. Malcolm had been alerted to the fact that a kid who shouldn't even have been aware of the existence of a very sophisticated and classified piece of military equipment was trying to sell it on the Internet, and Ros was furious.

"Just what we need," she fumed into my ear, "two plane-loads of Middle Eastern egomaniacs with a desert-full of grudges apiece strutting around London and the army's new _wunderkind_ on the loose in bloody Lambeth." I had to smile; Ros and political correctness were like oil and water. "Get it back!"

The estate was one of those fine examples of urban blight designed by an award-winning architect careful to live in a thatched cottage somewhere in Surrey. But the information was correct; I recognised the weapon immediately. Dean Mitchell - one of those swaggering, street-wise kids with a lot of lip – ignored my question about where he'd got it from, and the arrival of two cars with four heavily-built, scowling men in them prevented me from taking the issue further. His mother was still twittering her protests when I shoved the two of them out of the back door seconds before the new arrivals smashed in the front.

I had a split second to savour the pleasure of hot-wiring and stealing their vehicle, but it didn't last long. When I contacted Ros she ordered me to avoid Thames House head for a safe house instead, via Surrey Quays shopping centre, where Jo and another car would be waiting.

By now, every antenna I had was on alert. This was meant to have been a simple mopping-up job; it was already a lot more than that, and there had been an unusual tension in Ros's voice. I needed to find out more, but for the moment, at least, I wasn't going to get it from her. At the shopping centre, I dispatched Dean's mother, whose whining protests from the back seat had been like tinnitus in my ear ever since we left the flat, to buy some essentials, and cornered her son.

_This is classified military kit. Where did you get it?_

Predictably, all I got in response was the insolent brush-off typical of the breed. Unluckily for him, I wasn't a bobby on the beat who didn't dare raise an eyebrow, much less a hand, for fear of disciplinary measures. Dean Mitchell wouldn't have lasted a week in Leshanko. It didn't take more than a quietly spoken threat – which by then I sincerely meant - to leave him and Mummy to fend for themselves to elicit that the little know-it-all had seen the weapon in use and knew what it could do. But then I spotted the pursuers I thought I'd lost elbowing their way across the food court. _Shit._ _How the hell did they track us here?_

Shoving Dean ahead of me, I grabbed the car keys Jo Portman tossed to me and pushed a coded note for Malcolm into her hand as we passed on the escalator. I couldn't help noticing, as we dodged through ambling shoppers infuriatingly indifferent to our need for haste, that this obviously wasn't the first time young Dean had made a fast getaway. He was weaving through the crowds a lot more easily than I was, and by the time we reached the car I wasn't sure who was leading whom.

Jo had instructed me to go to _Venue 7 – _a terraced house was scheduled for demolition and that we were meanwhile using as a temporary safe house. The street seemed quiet enough, but I still chivvied them to get inside. There had been a welcome lack of questions in the car this time; I think Sarah was too petrified to ask any, and the re-appearance of the heavy mob seemed to have convinced even Dean that taking orders from me was preferable than getting entangled with them. Inside the safe house, he meekly accepted both my instruction to make sure the windows were fully boarded-up, and the roll of masking tape I threw to him for the purpose. Then I did my best to reassure his mother; not easy when I didn't have a full picture of what was happening myself, wasn't allowed to give details about what little I _did _know, and couldn't even be entirely honest about who I was. Ironically, it was Dean who saved me from having to try; he shook his head urgently over Sarah's shoulder when she asked me what he'd done, so I shrugged and muttered something vague about 'clearing a few things up'. Then I distracted her by suggesting she might like to try and make us something to eat, reflecting as I did just how withering a comment Ros would have made about my sexist attitude had she been there to hear me.

After we'd eaten some scrambled egg and washed it down with a mug of coffee that made the old joke about it being ground this morning seem uncomfortably accurate, I sent Dean and his mother to sleep upstairs and installed myself in a sleeping bag on the floor downstairs. I had tried to contact the Grid several times, but neither Ros's phone nor Harry's was responding. That, allied to the eerie, claustrophobic similarity of my surroundings to those of my cell in Leshanko, guaranteed that I spent the night awake, imagination working overtime and nerves jangling with every footfall that passed down the street. I was already up and making coffee when Dean slouched through the door, bleary-eyed and grumbling about the lack of proper beds. I handed him a cup.

"That's not why you didn't sleep, though, is it?" I asked. No response. "Why didn't you want your mum to know what you'd seen?"

He mumbled something about Sarah fussing. I shook my head. I'd seen how protective he was of his mother; under the hard outer shell, there was a decent kid in there somewhere. God knows where Dad was – long gone, I imagined. It couldn't be easy for the two of them, certainly not financially. I suggested as much, and for the first time got a flash of something other than hostility from him.

"You've seen her purse, man. She's got more credit cards than Beyonce."

I smiled. "Not with Beyonce's credit limit, though?"

He hesitated, and then grinned back. "You're not wrong." Now that he was dropping the tough-guy act there was a sudden charm in his face. He reminded me of Sasha, at Leshanko. I quashed the memory instantly. That was one I hadn't even mentioned to Ros, and it was the last thing I needed now.

He looked at me with open curiosity. "Where'd you grow up, then?"

I told him. _Big house in London, public school indeed. Right guess, wrong spy, mate. _That was Ros, not me. The thought made me check my mobile again. No call or text from her. _Where the hell is she?_ _Something_ was going seriously wrong here, and I hated not knowing what it was. Without her orders I had no idea what my next move should be.

"What, minister like in government?"

"Sorry?" I pulled myself back quickly. "Oh … no, minister as in Methodist. Methodist church," I added, when, incredibly, he looked blank. He seemed impressed. It was the first time he'd regarded me with anything other than scorn; the first time, I suspected, that he'd actually seen me as a person rather than the embodiment of the authorities he despised. But when he asked my father's name we were stumbling into forbidden territory. There were few offences an MI-5 officer can commit more heinous than disclosing personal details. I could have lied, of course. _Should_ have lied - that was S.O.P. But this was the first trust the kid had shown in me, and I was afraid I would damage it if I did. So far he'd been cocky, insubordinate and uncooperative, but I sensed a rapport beginning to build between us now and I didn't _want _to lie. Besides, I had a feeling that in his sixteen years, Dean Mitchell had been lied to quite enough already. So it was perhaps fortunate that just then the letterbox rattled, interrupting the conversation.

I was jolted when Dean instantly recognised the man in the photograph the envelope contained as the one whom he'd seen firing the gun. At first he claimed not to have seen or heard anything more than he had told me already, and this time I knew he wasn't just being bloody-minded. The know-it-all, streetwise cool had given way to a panicky, frightened kid who was out of his depth. I was just beginning to feel dangerously out of mine, when he mentioned the rucksack he'd dumped when he stole the weapon.

_That's it! _Despite the gloom, broken only by a few pallid stripes of sunlight filtering through the boards on the windows, I felt as if someone had switched on a neon strip light. "Where is it? The rucksack?"

"I told you, I dumped it in a scrap metal yard."

"Take me there." I snatched up my coat, just as Sarah came in.

"What's going on?" Her voice was high-pitched with fright, and it rose several notches when I shooed Dean towards the door. "Where are you going?"

_Need to know_. She didn't, so I just snapped at her to stay where she was and wait. I didn't feel good about it. She looked so small and defenceless standing there on her own, wringing her hands, bewildered and terrified by the maelstrom she'd been sucked into. What had she said – _he's all I've got in the world?_ It seemed cruel to separate them, but I had no choice.

_You're an intelligence officer, not a social worker. Do what you have to do! _I heard Ros's impatient voice so clearly that she might have materialised out of the shadows, and suddenly I very much wished she had.

"We'll be back." I forced myself to smile at Sarah Mitchell's woebegone little face. "You'll be fine." With that trite reassurance, we turned and left her.

oOoOoOo

The confidence – albeit edged with wariness - that the boy had begun to show in me paid off when we reached the scrapyard. We found not only the rucksack but also the well-armed, _persistent_ bloody posse that by then I _should_ have shaken off not once, but twice. I was starting to understand why Ros had cut all communications with me. We weren't being 'found' as much as stalked – _and_ by professionals. I stuffed the USB key from the rucksack into my pocket and we fled, racing between the teetering walls of rusting cars, piping, scaffolding and shipping containers. Without hesitation, Dean took the lead; to my disgust he had the edge on me in speed. Still, I should have been grateful; it was only thanks to him unhesitatingly clubbing the man who pinned me down at one point with a piece of drainpipe, that we reached the car inches ahead of flying bullets.

I gave Dean the laptop and memory stick, then concentrated on putting as much distance as I could between us and the opposition. A hat-trick of close shaves in less than 48 hours was enough even for me. We needed to pick Sarah Mitchell up quickly and get to the safety of the Grid.

"Done it." Dean grinned triumphantly at me. "Told you I was good, didn't I?"

I couldn't help smiling. _Conceited little so-and-so. _Although I had to admit he'd broken that encryption with a speed that would have impressed even Malcolm. Maybe there _was_ a future in the Service for the little sod. He had initiative, speed - and he could lie like a trooper.

"Who's that woman?"

I glanced at the laptop screen and the angry, intent face of the Foreign Secretary looked back at me. _Shit. _My palms were suddenly slippery on the steering wheel. Dean scowled. "I'm sure I've seen her before."

I leaned across and slammed the lid down. "You didn't see anything." I could hear my own tension. "Do you understand?"

His puzzlement turned to visible alarm, but he nodded. As he did, my mobile buzzed. _Don't go home. Call now. Ros._

oOoOoOo

_Another_ safe house. Any _camaraderie_ I'd thought might develop between myself and Dean Mitchell had evaporated with his mother's abduction. I couldn't blame the kid for being stroppy with me; I was the one who'd left Sarah Mitchell alone and exposed. I believed Ros when she had assured me that she would get her back, but I couldn't convince Dean. During the brief meet where I had handed over the USB stick, Ros's eyes had skimmed over him as if he was invisible. This was Ros Myers at her coldest and most remote. For the moment, Dean Mitchell and his mother were merely potential threats to a sensitive operation. I knew she was right, but her indifference had left me trying to soothe an understandably sullen, aggressive and frightened teenager. Given the choice, I might even have preferred to be arguing the minutiae of diplomatic protocol with Claude '_l'Etat c'est moi'_ Denizet.

"Look," I'd said over and over, trying to be patient and reassuring, "your mum's going to be OK, Dean. That woman we saw keeps her promises. If she says she's going to get her back, then she will."

He'd just snorted. "How do _you_ know? All you government people lie. She don't care about people like us, we just get in the way." His fear, plus the years of ingrained mistrust of The System and everyone in it meant that I couldn't find a way to reassure him, however hard I tried. Because I knew Ros, I could see beyond her ruthlessness, but to Dean she was just another arrogant 'posh bitch' who didn't give a toss for him or his mother.

In the end I'd put the television on and watched an old James Bond film with him for a couple of hours. Half-afraid he would try to do a runner on me, I dragged a couple of armchair cushions onto the floor and dozed uncomfortably between the sofa where he slept and the door.

It was a massive relief when Ros called early the following morning to tell me that Sarah had been released and that I should bring Dean to meet her. When he still glared at me suspiciously, I braved Ros's wrath and had her send a photograph of Sarah and herself to my mobile. Sarah was smiling shakily, and Ros's face looked like a distant relative of one of the heads on Mount Rushmore, but it finally reassured Dean. He grinned.

"That old witch as scary as she looks?"

"More so," I assured him, and clapped him on the shoulder. "But I've got protection. So let's move."

Even Ros cracked a faint, wintry smile when Dean and his mum were reunited. She looked strained though, and I guessed that the anodyne BBC report on the Middle East conference had glossed over a multitude of sins. What she clearly _wasn't_ in the mood for was anything less than full and immediate acquiescence to the plan to get Dean and his mother safely out of the country. So when Dean started to argue, and protest that he would sell his story to the papers, her eyes flashed, and she cut him off with an exasperated injunction to '_grow up'. _I winced.

"Dean," I cut in quickly, 'this is the best - "

He turned on me. "No, this is _bullshit_! I trusted you, man! All your talk … you're just like all the others! Everyone messes up, it's not fair!" With that he wrenched his arm from his mother's, span round and raced off down the walkway.

I sprinted after him, but the kid was angry and he was fast. I caught up with him only by suicidally leaping down the escalator three steps at a time.

"Dean!" I grabbed his arm. "Listen, it's not safe here."

"I'm safe! I'm faster than you, remember?" He darted towards the glass lift with me in hot pursuit.

I didn't even hear the bullet; just saw his body hit the glass wall and slump to the ground, leaving a smeared trail of blood behind as the lift began to rise. Sarah Mitchell's screams were already echoing down the shaft, her frantic pounding on the doors vibrating through the cage. When they opened, she threw herself at Dean, shrieking his name.

I managed to get to my feet to see Ros skidding to a halt beside the gaping lift doors. She was sheet-white, her eyes wide with shock, sheer horror etched on her face. I saw her lips move, but Sarah's piercing wails drowned her words. I was vaguely aware of heads starting to turn at the noise, and an increasingly insistent thud of running feet. Ros thrust her phone at me.

"Call CO-19. _Now!_" when I didn't react immediately. She turned and bent over Sarah Mitchell.

"Sarah. Sarah!" When she reached for the woman, Sarah turned on her like a wild animal, raining blows on her, trying to claw at her face, and screaming obscenities. I went to help, but Ros spat: "_No,_ call back-up!" and wrestled Sarah away from Dean until she finally had her in a subdued, sobbing heap against the balcony rail.

Station security staff cordoned off the area, and when CO-19 arrived they started what I knew would be a futile hunt for the gunman. The sharpshooter – he had to have been one to have made that shot – was long gone. Ros turned Sarah Mitchell over to a pair of paramedics, and joined me as I removed Dean's body from the lift.

"You all right?" she asked.

I nodded, but kept my eyes averted. Ros dabbed a tissue on the still bleeding scratches Sarah had left on her face. There was a bruise emerging on her jaw, too, but she had snapped at the paramedics to leave her alone.

"You got too close, Lucas." There was no reproach in her voice, just a terrible sadness that I didn't expect, and surprise made me look at her. "He reminded you of someone, didn't he?"

"No," I lied. "He was just a kid … I should have watched out for him. I promised her he'd be fine."

Ros shook her head. "The fault's mine," she said bitterly. "I trusted someone." She made it sound like a crime. I watched as she flicked on her ringing mobile. "Harry."

I could hear his voice; Ros barely had any colour to lose, but her lips tightened as she listened.

"On our way." She shoved the phone savagely into her pocket.

"Angry?" I asked, unnecessarily.

"Livid," Ros said tersely. "Time to go." She glanced around. "What's that?"

I stooped to where she was pointing into the still stalled lift What looked from a distance like a piece of card turned out to be an old, creased photograph of a much younger Sarah Mitchell with a strapping black man and a child of about five. Dean must have been carrying it.

Silently, I held it out to Ros. She carefully wiped a smear of blood off before she scrutinised it. When she looked up, her eyes were sparkling with tears, and for a moment she half-turned away from me. The 'scary old witch' had gone. Suddenly I was back in the presence of the _other_ Ros Myers – the one that cosy, warm, secret bedroom belonged to. The one who seemed to know about Sasha even though I'd never mentioned him.

"We'll keep it." Her voice was harsh, and she almost kept the quiver under control. "Teach us both a bloody lesson."

I nodded slowly. At least, unlike with Sasha, this time there was going to be someone who understood.

We turned our backs on the bloodstained lift and headed off together to face the music.

oOoOoOo

Thank you for reading! Please review :)


	10. Chapter 10

_CHAPTER TEN_

I didn't expect any of the team to be especially buoyant after the conference. Yes, we'd saved Claude Denizet. But none of us had much sympathy for that pompous little twerp, and we'd had to pay for his life with Dean Mitchell's. I was furious that Michael Sands had first taken me for a fool and then made me look like one. Harry, faced with a PR disaster, was understandably livid, and took his anger out on Lucas and me. He hadn't mentioned _Sugarhorse_ again, but I guessed that at least part of his rage was a by-product of his anxiety about it. I wanted to offer support, as per my job description, but this clearly wasn't the time.

Lucas I _could_ do something about. He'd been very subdued ever since Dean's death. Harry being ratty and aggressive I could cope with, but I wasn't about to try and do my job sandwiched between _two_ people with faces the length of the bloody M1. Anyway, Lucas was too sentimental for his own good – and mine – at the best of times.

I knew there was something either he or I had said that was relevant to his mood, but when I went back over the transcripts of his debriefing, they were no help. I kept thinking, cursing my memory for letting me down when I most needed it.

It was two more days before it came back to me. I nabbed Lucas when Harry had gone off to one of his increasingly frequent mysterious 'meetings' and installed me in his office to keep things ticking over. Lucas gave me a teasing smile that disarmed me for a second.

"That desk suits you," he observed. "Harry should look out." When I didn't respond, the smile faded. "What's the matter, Ros?"

"You are," I said. "Sit down. There's something I wanted to tell you. And if I'm wrong, I want you to say so."

The office door slid open. Connie's eyebrows shot up when she saw Lucas.

"Ros, Section A's sent up that report that you - "

"Later, Connie," I snapped. She bristled, and I belatedly added, "Thank you."

She made a huffing noise like an indignant horse and departed, leaving an air of umbrage and disapproval behind her. I turned back to Lucas.

"Dean Mitchell reminded you of someone you knew at Leshanko. Another prisoner. And that prisoner – or something that happened to him – is the reason why you tried to take your own life."

For a moment he just stared. Then he shook his head.

"How do you know about that?"

I suppressed a nascent feeling of triumph at being right. "You gave yourself away. Up on the roof. I said something about not hanging yourself with any slack I might cut you."

There was a long pause before he said: "Her. Sasha. Her." He swallowed. "She was just a kid – an urchin really, from Omsk. She was like Dean - sassy, always ready with the backchat. School dropout … she more or less lived on the streets. Mother was a mess, drink and drugs, and her father was long gone. It's not all billionaires buying up football clubs."

_I know. _I nodded to him to go on.

"She used to hang around the camp. Ran errands for the prisoners if they had money. And the guards. Let herself be used by them too, I think. They'd give her a few roubles, or trinkets she could sell. She'd bring food – and medicines, sometimes. I got painkillers from her once or twice when – well, when they'd - " he shrugged. "Food too, especially in winter. The cold was much harder to bear if you were hungry as well."

"The guards allowed it?" I asked.

"Turned a blind eye. The system's completely corrupt. And she paid." He blinked rapidly.

"What happened?"

"Darshavin. He'd been in a foul mood for weeks. Cut my rations; let his gorillas off the leash during interrogations. I'd developed a stomach infection, and they wouldn't treat it. He caught me getting something from Sasha and started laying into me. She tried to intervene." He wiped his eyes. "Called him every filthy name in the book – and Sasha knew a few. I tried to stop her … screamed at her to run. I knew Darshavin. He could be kind, but when he got angry he was brutal. Turned savage." His voice shook. "Ros, I'm sorry …"

"He shot her?" I supplied quietly.

"Yes. I – I couldn't stop him. He – threw me in the – in the punishment cells. Left her body outside in the snow for two days where I could see it. It was freezing in there, and I was in pain, but it was shooting her that did it … last straw, I suppose. I made a noose from the sheets. In time-honoured fashion." His smile was ghastly. "Darshavin cut me down. That's what I'll never forgive him for. Killing her and saving me. I swore I'd get my revenge on him. Don't suppose I ever will now."

I could feel a lump in my throat. I swallowed on it – hard.

"I've never told anyone that before." Lucas sounded bewildered.

"That's because no-one ever ordered you to," I said dryly.

"No." He blew his nose. "It's because we're friends. You understand. And I think you care." A very faint smile. "At least when there's a Z in the month."

"I care about you being able to do your job, Lucas." I tried to keep my voice brisk. "Harry has enough on his plate. He needs both of us." I conceded an inch. "And _I_ need _you._"

He nodded. "I won't let you down, Ros." He nodded out at Connie, watching us with a baleful expression. "I think you're needed out there, too."

I doubted that. Connie reacted to me in Harry's office the way the Pope would to a statue of Calvin in his. Lucas squeezed my shoulder as he passed me. "Thanks, Ros."

_We're friends._ I'd thought Harry was the only friend I had. I wasn't sure I'd ever had two real friends at once.

"You're welcome, Lucas." The shadows of the last few days had gone from his eyes now that he'd unburdened himself. At least I'd solved one problem. I smiled up at him and followed him out.

oOoOoOo

Two days later he woke me at 7 a.m. with a whispered message. "_Ros, Harry's sending me to Moscow for intel. I'll call.' _Half-thinking I'd dreamt the call, I rang him back. No reply. Harry's phone _was_ answered, but not by Harry's voice.

I didn't need any further wake-up calls. Within the hour I was at Thames House, where I was greeted by chaos. Connie was verbally shredding some poor soul over the phone at a volume audible all over the Grid, while Malcolm, shorn of his usual diffident politeness, was arguing heatedly with the internal security officers demanding control of his systems. All of it was being watched helplessly by Ben and Jo, and orchestrated, with his usual dazzling ineptitude, by Richard 'Jellyfish' Dalby.

When he told me that Harry had been arrested on suspicion of being an FSB mole, I was torn between laughing in his face and wanting to slap it, but instead I just listened to his 'proof' of Harry's guilt with the most contemptuous expression I could muster. With the solid foundation of Harry ripped out from under it, his team would need authority and guidance. I felt as if the world had tilted on its axis too, but I couldn't let them see that, or let them indulge their shock. The wires were burning with the news of the death of the Russian Foreign Minister. _Harry accused of working for the FSB, poor bloody Lucas thrust back into the land of his nightmares, Sugarhorse at risk._ I didn't believe Aleksandr Borkhovin's sudden demise was a coincidence. That was about the only thing Richard Dalby and I were ever likely to agree on.

_Where's Lucas? _That was Connie. I said I had no idea. In the cacophony of voices echoing in my mind I could hear Harry. _I will expose a mole in MI-5. _Much as I hated to think of it, that traitor was probably here on the Grid. I knew it wasn't Harry. I didn't want to contemplate who else it might be either, but I had no choice. As the others dispersed to their tasks, I had the personnel files of the entire team brought to me and started going through them.

For hours, we achieved little but frustration. I was re-reading Lucas's file when Malcolm discovered that the man who had recently upgraded Aleksandr Borkhovin's IT systems had _also_ died, recently and unexpectedly, of a heart attack. _A second coincidence._ I had Jo chase down the man's post-mortem results and thankfully sent the files back to Personnel. It made me feel almost unclean to be suspecting Lucas again; I couldn't help imagining his terror at the prospect of returning to Moscow. Then, of course, he _could_ have gone at Harry's behest but with the blessing of the Russians, if I was wrong.

_I'm not._ The only way to dispel the sickening miasma of mistrust that now pervaded the Grid – _and_ save Harry's skin - was to find out who the mole _really_ was. I shoved my chair angrily backwards and joined Malcolm and Jo.

_What's going on?_ Just as we were reviewing the information confirming that Chandra Paturi had _not_ died of natural causes, Dalby interrupted us. He was bleating about the imminent arrival of the Home Secretary when Ben came up from the archive, announcing that MI-5's file on Borkhovin had been signed out - repeatedly - by a Hugo Prince. Almost simultaneously, Malcolm found a Russian press photo of Borkhovin's body. On the shoulder I could see a tattoo. Malcolm zoomed in on what appeared to be a rearing horse on a pedestal. I felt the office recede around me and then slowly come back into focus.

_Borkhovin was a 'Sugarhorse' asset._

That forced me to come clean to Dalby. The sight of him smugly enthroned behind Harry's desk made bile rise into my throat, but for Harry's sake I kept my voice low and my face as expressionless as possible. Not easy; my lip tended to curl automatically within ten yards of Richard Dalby. It didn't help that he poured scorn on my every word, refusing to believe that anyone other than Harry could have been responsible for the betrayal of _Sugarhorse._ When he started sniping at Lucas too, I was ready to explode.

"You want me to use Harry's team to prove that he's a traitor?" Harry kept a large glass paperweight on the corner of his desk; it was within my reach, and I had to restrain myself from heaving it straight into his face. The effort might have been beyond me had the Home Secretary not arrived and saved me from myself.

_And perhaps from this moron_, _too_. I knew Nicholas Blake admired me. I didn't usually make use of that because it was unprofessional, but this time I would. I hurried out in Dalby's obsequious wake, and listened in growing alarm to news of a second Russian official, a nuclear scientist this time, found dead. That, and knowing that Lucas was risking his life in Moscow even as we stood there, cured any hesitation I might have had. But it was useless. Blake accepted Dalby's veto and refused me permission to brief the others. I was a serving officer and I had to obey the orders I was given.

_Sometimes_. With Dalby busy smarming his way round Nicholas Blake, I swiftly told the team about _Sugarhorse. _Hugo Prince – the only officer other than Harry and Dalby himself to know who the _Sugarhorse_ assets were, seemed to be the only viable link we had, especially when Ben said that someone had used his name to get access to Borkhovin's file the day _after_ Prince's death. I sent him back to the archive to find the access slip, put Connie back to monitoring Russian traffic, and started helping Jo to comb our Russian asset files.

The atmosphere had been tense when I arrived that morning, but now it was poisonous; everyone was watching everyone else. Knowledge of _Sugarhorse_ had spread the venom of suspicion through the team. I quashed my own longing for Dalby to be the mole. That last, sneering crack about Lucas and Harry together having pulled the wool over my eyes had destroyed my ability to tolerate the sight of the bastard, never mind work with him. I gritted my teeth. _Concentrate! Harry's depending on you. _I quelled Jo's fussing about how long Ben was taking, and snapped at her to focus on the task at hand. We couldn't just sit there and wait for Ben to disinter a slip of paper bearing a traitor's signature. Connie had been right; it was a needle in a haystack job, and it could take forever. We _had_ to try another way.

We were still trying it when Dalby appeared at my shoulder, his smug leer still firmly glued to his face.

_Harry would like to see you._

oOoOoOo

I hadn't been to the interrogation suite since my first debriefing session with Lucas, and the sight of Harry in a Guantanamo-style plastic boiler suit made my blood run cold. I glared at Charles Grady, a putrid specimen of humanity masquerading as a specialist in counter-intelligence. When Harry had the courtesy to rise at the sight of me – something he barely had the strength to do – I could have wept. I sat down opposite him, wondering if I would be able to speak without doing so.

"None of this is true, is it?" I asked.

"I'm afraid it is," he said. I scrutinised his face as he went on, trying to read his eyes, straining for the slightest nuance in his voice. I could feel the warmth of a trickle of blood in my palm, caused by the way I was digging my nails into it. I still don't remember climbing the stairs back up to the Grid, and when Malcolm asked anxiously after Harry I almost broke.

"Did he say anything?"

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to replay those agonisingly painful few moments. '… _the renaissance – renaissance … of something I profoundly believe in …'_

"Renaissance," I croaked.

He found the file. A 1980s disinformation operation, run by Harry against the Russians. Harry – and Connie James. White-hot fury blazed up in me. Malcolm turned to me.

"The traitor," he whispered. At that moment Dalby swept in, self-satisfaction draped around him like a gladiator's cloak, and informed me that he had the names and had passed them on to a 'trustworthy' officer. For the first time ever, I heard Malcolm Wynne-Jones swear, vehemently, and not quite under his breath. I still had Lucas alone and out on a limb in Moscow, and by now Connie would know he was there.

"You are a fool." My voice was shaking with pent-up rage and a fear for _both _my friends that I would never admit to him. "I know why Harry wanted to see me. Connie James was turned during Operation Renaissance."

I pointed him to the computer screen just as Jo appeared in the doorway.

"Security's just called. One of the locks to the paper archive's been tampered with."

I pushed past Dalby without a word. As we made our way through the corridors I could feel an icy chill of dread spreading through me. When they broke open the door I thrust my way in and saw the terrible, bloody, _unbearable_ evidence of my failure.

I turned on my heel and walked blindly out again into the corridor. Halfway down I leaned weakly against the wall and turned my face away as internal security officers came pounding towards the archive. _Oh God._ I had wanted the post of Section Chief. I'd more or less _demanded_ of Harry that he give it to me. Adam had talked to me once about his guilt over the death of Danny Hunter, and of course I'd been there when we lost Zaf Younis. But I hadn't been in charge. Those officers hadn't been my responsibility. Ben Kaplan was. _Had been._ The blood pooling across the tiled floor of the archive was on my hands.

"Ros? Ros!"

I made myself turn. Malcolm looked suddenly old, but he spoke firmly. "We need to find her. And release Harry."

I swallowed. "Where's Jo?" When he nodded towards the archive, I wiped my sweaty hands down my skirt. "Get her out and take her back to the Grid. Then ring Lucas. Keep trying until you reach him. Make sure he's safe; I want him back here as soon as possible." That was personal as much as it was professional. More so. I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to him. Not there. Not now.

Malcolm nodded, and reached out to support me as I straightened unsteadily. "Are you all right, Ros?"

I nodded, but the shock was hitting home now; I was shivering, and the usual glib _I'm fine_ wouldn't come. He frowned, but he was enough of a gentleman not to press me. Instead, he briefly touched my hand, and watched me go.

oOoOoOo

I headed straight for Harry's office. Richard Dalby was still there, now surrounded by a gaggle of officers from Internal Security. The most senior turned to me.

"Rosalind Myers, Section Chief," I said, before Dalby could say anything. "One of my officers has just been murdered by the senior analyst in this Section, Connie James. You need to seal the building - now. My team has found evidence that she was turned by the FSB and is the mole passing them classified information. Connie James, _not_ Harry Pearce. He was set up and framed." I turned to Richard Dalby. "And _you_ were duped."

"I _beg_ your pardon?" The indignation was well feigned, but he was blustering, and both of us knew it.

I thought of Harry struggling to his feet in that humiliating suit, drugged, and denied so much as a glass of water. "You can beg for _my _pardon until the sun turns cold. If you want Harry's, call that ghoul downstairs and get him released." I turned my back on him and stormed out.

When Malcolm returned with Jo, the latter tear-stained and shaky, I took them both into Harry's office, now blessedly free of the presence of Richard Dalby, who had vanished. I didn't know where, and now that I'd been informed that Harry's interrogation had been terminated, I didn't care either. I made coffee, and we sat quietly, waiting. There didn't seem to be much to say, although Malcolm, bless him, tried. He had managed to make contact with Lucas as he was boarding a flight in Moscow, the proof of Connie's treachery safely stowed in his pocket. Security was still searching for Connie; the team leader had promised to phone me the instant they located her.

"What's Lucas's ETA?" I asked.

"Eight-thirty," Malcolm answered. "Do you want him met?"

I shook my head. I had every intention of going to meet the plane myself to ensure the intelligence reached us safely. _Who are you kidding, Myers?_ If Lucas had managed to spirit it out of Moscow with the FSB's finest on his tail, he'd hardly need my help to get it from Heathrow to Milbank. Malcolm had said he sounded '_stressed but OK', _but Malcolm could only guess at how traumatic returning to Russia would have been for him. I _knew, _and I wanted to be there when he came home.

All three of us jumped as my mobile rang. "Myers. Yes. Understood. Yes. Wait for my signal." Jo and Malcolm were watching me. "She's approaching the Grid." My throat felt dry. "Stay here."

I waited in the shadow of a pillar. Since I was wearing dark clothes, she didn't see me immediately. She looked so … harmless. Just a stout little English granny, flat shoes, handbag over her arm, short grey hair. You'd see her in a supermarket queue and forget her face within ten yards of the checkout. Unremarkable. Unsurpassed in the ability to deceive and betray. I moved into her path.

"Step away from the pods."

She raised her eyebrows quizzically. "Something wrong?"

The still open graze on my hand stung as I clenched my fists, reminding me of that obscene crimson stain to which she'd reduced Ben Kaplan's life. I checked my anger, but I could still hear it tautening my voice.

"Operation _Renaissance,_" I said. "That's where they turned you, wasn't it? You and Harry in Moscow. He came back the same." I raised one hand and snapped my fingers, my agreed signal with Internal Security. "You didn't."

The affable smile in her eyes morphed slowly into a cold, menacing glitter. "Almost made it!"

I heard the footsteps emerging behind me, but I didn't take my eyes from Connie James until I heard the voice at my shoulder.

"Almost." Harry still looked drained and exhausted, but he was back in a suit and tie. "Why did you do it?"

I saw the snarling smile with which she responded in my dreams for several nights afterwards. It must have stayed with Harry for a lot longer. He had known and trusted Connie for most of his working life.

_Get her out of my sight._ When Connie had been escorted from the Grid, he called me into the office.

"Sit down, Ros."

I sat. I still had a lot to do. I wanted to make sure that someone would take care of Jo tonight; I'd learnt my lesson on that front, at least. Ben Kaplan's family had to be informed of his death, and Lucas would be arriving soon. But for the moment, the sheer relief of seeing Harry back in his rightful place outweighed my need to deal with any of it.

"Are you feeling all right?" I asked.

He grimaced. "I've felt better. Where's Lucas? Is he safe?"

I told him, and he nodded. "A commendation will go on both your records. Without his courage and your loyalty, this could have ended very differently. You've both done a superb job. I'll make sure the Home Secretary is aware of that."

I shook my head. "I don't deserve it, Harry. I lost an officer today. I'm responsible for Ben's death."

His eyes flashed. "You are _not, _Ros_._ That is Connie James's responsibility and hers alone. As is the death of Maria Korachevskaya." He sighed, but as I would have contradicted him he raised an admonitory hand. "_No_, Ros. No self-flagellation, no wallowing, no guilt. Sadness I'll allow, for both you _and_ me. But no more. Agreed?"

I hesitated, and then asked the question I had been dreading. "What about informing Ben's family?"

"My responsibility," Harry said crisply. He looked at his watch. "I have an appointment with the Home Secretary in half an hour." He stood up; I could see he was still slightly unsteady, but I knew better than to mention it as he came round the desk, put an arm round me and kissed my cheek. "I'm very much in your debt. Thank you, Rosalind."

oOoOoOo

I drove Jo home; she had asked Harry to allow her to break the news of Ben's death to his family, and declined my offer to go with her. I didn't press her, because she was a far more suitable choice to do the job than I, and I was beginning to think that Jo could sometimes be more grown-up than I gave her credit for. I drove on to Heathrow, bought myself a coffee and leaned on the barrier drinking it as I waited for the passengers from the Moscow flight.

Lucas emerged from Customs in the midst of a large group of tourists. He seemed to be using them as cover. Even from a distance I could see how tense he was; he was looking around him continuously. I had been checking for surveillance myself for the last twenty minutes and seen nothing suspicious, so when he came level with me I smiled.

"You're clean. Good job, Lucas." I knew better than to make him wait. "We've got her."

He looked utterly exhausted, but he visibly relaxed. "_Slava bogu." _It slipped out in Russian. "Is Harry OK?"

"Everything's fine." I shut off the memory of Ben. Lucas didn't need that yet.

He pointed at my cup. "Is there anything left in there?"

I handed it over. He took a long, grateful swallow and then immediately shuddered in disgust. I took coffee black and sugarless; Lucas usually added half an udderful of milk and at least three teaspoons of sugar.

"Ugh. Ros, that's foul. Can't we get another one? And I'm starving."

"I've got a better idea." I gestured towards the exit.

"Yeah?" He looked at me suspiciously. "Is it edible?"

I told him how I'd stopped off on the way to the airport and bought the makings of an evening meal and a bottle of wine. "Pasta, salad and strawberry tart. I owe you. And I can bring you up to speed."

The last phrase made the suggestion respectable; made it sound like a debrief, rather than an invitation that I was part embarrassed, part ashamed to be making, and nervous that he would refuse.

I needn't have worried. At the mention of strawberry tart his eyes sparkled. "You're on. It's good to see a friendly face, Ros."

"Where?" I shot back. He laughed – a genuine, warm, relaxed laugh, so different from that last, _evil_ one of Connie's – and tucked his arm through mine. I felt myself blushing like an idiot.

"All rosy red, sweet, and dimpled." He looked at me and grinned mischievously. "I do love a good strawberry." He ducked as I took a swing at him. "_There is no sincerer love than the love of food,' _Ros. George Bernard Shaw."

_Got you. _" '_One should eat to live, not live to eat.' _Cicero, Rhetoricorum." I opened the car door.

"Cicero never flew British Airways." He slid in. I waved on the car behind, and started the engine. It was only as we reached the exit to the approach road that the number plate impinged on me.

32 D 726. Russian Embassy.

oOoOoOo

_Thank you for reading. Please review!_


	11. Chapter 11

_CHAPTER ELEVEN_

As tired as I was when I got back to London, I gratefully accepted when Ros invited me to dinner. Two airline meals, supplemented by the occasional greasy _pirozhok_ bought from a street kiosk in Moscow hadn't been exactly satisfying, and besides, I wanted to hear what had happened to Connie. When I asked, though, Ros shook her head and said firmly, "Tell me about Moscow, first."

I glanced at her. She was checking her mirrors a little more than was necessary.

"Are we clean?" I asked.

I was rewarded with a withering look. "Of _course_ we are. I did just scrape a pass in the counter-surveillance tests, you know, Lucas."

I sighed. _You asked for that._

"Sorry." I told her everything as we drove. She nodded occasionally as if what I was saying had confirmed her own opinion. As we pulled up near my flat, she said quietly, "You know Maria Korachevskaya's dead?"

"I guessed," I admitted. I relieved her of the bag of shopping and started searching my pockets for my keys. "Where the hell … hallelujah." I unlocked the door. "Ros?"

She had been looking intently up and down the road; I frowned. "Ros, are you - "

"Hungry? Not really. But I'll help you." She flashed a quick smile that somehow didn't quite look sincere. "Why don't you have a shower; I'll be ready when you come down."

She was obviously on edge, I thought, but that was to be expected after the shock of Connie's unmasking. That must have dented even Ros's shield of imperturbability. Since I could still smell and taste Moscow's lead-flavoured pollution on my clothes and in my mouth I did as she suggested without demur.

She was as good as her word, and the meal was waiting when I came back. I ate hungrily, and Ros picked at hers as she told me everything that had happened during my absence. I was so stunned by the news of Harry's arrest and interrogation that she repeatedly had to prompt me to carry on eating.

"What in God's name were they _thinking_ of?" I spluttered.

"You're talking about Richard Dalby," Ros said sourly. "Thinking doesn't come into it." She cut me a slice of strawberry tart and herself one half the size, and for a while we ate in silence.

"Is he all right now?" I finished the tart. "I mean, Dalby's not still - "

"Hardly."" Ros's lips twisted in disdain. "Last I heard, the idiot was still busy trying to untangle all the wool Connie pulled over his eyes." She pointed at my plate. "Do you want some more?" I shook my head. "Sure?"

"No, thanks. I'm full. Fed up in the very best sense." I smiled, but Ros didn't respond. She had lowered her head, and was staring at her clasped hands. "Ros?"

"Well if you've really finished eating …" she swallowed, and continued, "then there's something else."

As she told me about Connie's murder of Ben Kaplan, her voice seemed to take on an echoing quality, and my vision blurred. It was only when Ros gripped my wrist and deliberately dug her nails into it that I got the shock under control.

"Sorry … sorry." I shook my head; if there was one sin Ros Myers would never forgive, it was getting emotional. "She must have heard or – or found out … the call. I rang him." _Because I couldn't reach you._ I didn't say that because Ros's eyes were bleak enough. Her attitude to her subordinates was always brisk and distant, but that, I knew, disguised an intense loyalty and sense of responsibility towards them. I couldn't begin to imagine how she must have felt when she discovered Ben's body. "_Shit. _God, I should have thought - "

"Stop it. You shouldn't." Ros's voice was like iron. "Harry's right. He told me – no self-flagellation or feelings of guilt. That goes for you too."

_If he told you that it's because you were showing signs of both._ I watched as she got up and walked to the window, where she stood looking out into the street. _And what about Jo_? It was her friendship with Ben that had brought him into MI-5. She must be devastated. Perhaps I'd try and chat to her myself. I knew she'd never share her feelings with Ros. Too cold and unsympathetic.

_Except, she isn't._ Ros had gone to a lot of trouble to make this evening easier for me – first encouraged me to talk the Moscow tension out of my system, and then been thoughtful and patient enough to wait until I'd eaten my fill before she broke the most distressing piece of her news. Yet if I tried to thank her, it was a safe bet she'd bite my head off.

"Where _is_ that microfilm?" she asked suddenly. I handed it over. Ros examined it carefully – not that there'd be much to see until we got it back to the Grid.

"Do you want to take it?" I asked.

She shook her head. "It's safer here with you. Bring it in on Monday. In the meantime, get some rest. And be careful. Stay alert. I don't want to lose anyone else. Looks habit-forming."

The attempt at her usual dry wit fell painfully short, and besides, I was distracted by her use of the word 'safer'. That was the third time Ros had given me the impression of being concerned about something that I hadn't noticed. I wanted to ask what was worrying her, but her face had taken on the shuttered expression that I had come to know would render any enquiry fruitless. "I'll keep an eye on it."

"You'd better." She picked up her car keys and mobile and then hesitated. "I'm glad you're back, Lucas." She examined her key ring with a fierce intensity. "With you _and _Harry _hors de combat - _" She trailed off and shrugged. "It got a bit thin on the ground."

Her awkwardness touched me. I smiled. "You're not half as bloody glad as I am, Ros." I accompanied her to the door, and risked a quick squeeze of her hand. "Watch yourself."

She rolled her eyes. "_You _watch that bloody microfilm. I don't think Connie's pulled her last stunt on us. I want to know what the sodding thing's hiding first thing on Monday." She turned, went swiftly down the path and vanished into the shadows.

oOoOoOo

_Be careful what you wish for,_ I thought. When I arrived at Thames House on Monday neither Ros nor Harry was there. Jo told me they'd gone to see the Home Secretary. When I mentioned Ben, her face closed in a way that reminded me oddly of Ros, and she said curtly, "I'm fine, thanks," to my tentative offer to listen if she wanted to talk about what had happened. She even _sounded_ like Ros. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly in Malcolm's direction, but he merely shook his head warningly.

_OK. So maybe the Ice Maiden act's catching. _I abandoned my attempt at pastoral care and settled down to acquaint myself with the machinations of my old friends in the FSB. _ТИРЕСИЯС__. _I frowned. It was a long time since my teachers had bullied me into studying Greek mythology at school, but my reading had been pretty eclectic in prison; books had distracted me from the misery of my surroundings. _Tiresias, the blind seer._ I began to concentrate. After a while, I sat back with my eyes stinging from reading the tiny words, and my heart pounding from the impact of them.

I had been so engrossed that I hadn't realised that Harry and Ros had returned until I heard Ros's angry voice berating a junior officer about something. When I saw Harry behind his desk I got up and went straight in without bothering to knock.

_We've got a very serious problem._

That, of course, was understating it by a long way. Only the most serious of threats – like a parallel Russian _Sugarhorse_ operation, larger, better and more long-standing than ours – would have made Harry give the green light to the proposal from an icily furious Ros to snatch Connie James from our own counter-intelligence people so that we could find out what she no doubt already knew – what the _hell _the Russians were planning to do with it. I had the impression that, given the nod, Ros would willingly have clipped the electrodes on Connie herself, though I could have told her they wouldn't have worked. On the sharp-tongued but maternal, elderly woman who had worked with us - yes, possibly. Not on the vengeful, calculating and determined double-agent calmly facing down Ros's palpable hatred in the damp, dusty gloom of MI-5 safe-house _Ottawa Bravo_. I wasn't sure what moved her to frankness in the end – the shame I tried to make her feel, the brooding threat in Ros's rigid features or Harry's reluctant agreement to a deal. More likely than all of those, it was the desire to save her own skin, and it became clear that coming clean was the only way she'd succeed once she explained to us that the operation was an attack on London with a nuclear suitcase bomb. I felt physically sick at the potential consequences of that; even Ros turned pale. It was left to Harry to take the decisions – get Connie to the cache of information she'd stashed in London Bridge station that would identify the bomber and his target – and hustle us into movement.

Outside, he urged Ros down the street. Her hand was clamped like an eagle's talons on Connie's shoulder from where it would barely move for the next few hours. Harry followed them while I provided routine cover. Routine was shattered, along with the windows of several parked cars, when a squad of FSB officers opened fire. Ros instantly scuttled crab-like behind the line of vehicles, manhandling Connie with her. As bullets pinged off chassis and walls, showering everyone with glass and brick dust, she disappeared into a side alley.

"Split up!" I bellowed at Harry, as he dodged after them, trying to speak to Malcolm on his mobile at the same time. One of the closest Russians, a young woman, was firing from behind the shelter of a pram. I took two quick shots at her, and had the satisfaction of seeing her vanish temporarily behind an eruption of feathers from a bursting pillow. I sprinted after Harry.

"Get back to Thames House," I panted. "We'll never get this sorted unless you're on the Grid. We only have to get Connie across London." I glanced over my shoulder. "How hard can that be?"

Harry looked doubtful for a second. I wasn't surprised that he wasn't reassured by my airy assurance - it hadn't convinced me – but this was no time for an argument. He nodded.

"Watch the rooftops," he said. "They'll have numbers."

"Don't worry." I smiled tensely. I could hear sirens in the distance but I could distinguish running footsteps much closer. "I've got another route in mind. Go, Harry!" I asked him to phone Ros and tell her where to meet me, then he stepped decisively out into the crowds of office workers swarming along the main road, and I turned and melted back into the rabbit-warren of medieval alleys and lanes that make up the heart of the City of London.

oOoOoOo

_That's why you hate me. Not because I'm a spy, but because you're looking in a mirror._

I just caught Connie's words as I skidded into the tiny courtyard where she and Ros were waiting for me. It looked as if I had arrived in the nick of time. The air was crackling with tension, and when Ros span round, I saw her eyes were blazing with anger and loathing. There was a cold glitter of triumph in Connie's. Whatever she had been saying, it had got right under Ros's skin.

"Did you lose the eyeball?" Ros snapped. When I nodded, she grabbed Connie's arm and shoved her roughly forward. "Move!"

It was halfway across Bishopsgate that I felt it; like being kicked in the side by an angry mule. For a second I staggered under the impact, and as I regained my balance I felt a stinging, burning sensation oozing its way across my skin.

_Shit._ I saw Ros glance back and forced myself to straighten. She wasn't armed, and I knew she wouldn't abandon Connie to save herself, not with a mushroom-shaped sword of Damocles hanging over the unknowing heads around us. At least I had a gun and a few bullets; without them they'd be sitting ducks. And we _had_ to keep Connie alive for the next couple of hours. Just for a second, I deliberately allowed myself to recall the torture sessions I usually kept buried so deep. _You've had worse. Move._

The escalator that descended to the main concourse of Liverpool Street station was a nightmare; I felt like one of those plastic ducks on fairground shooting ranges, just waiting to be plucked off by a well-aimed bullet. When I forced the lock on a door marked 'No Public Access' and jostled Ros and Connie through it, Ros looked at me incredulously.

"Lucas, you're a bloody claustrophobic!" she hissed _sotto voce_ so that Connie couldn't hear.

"I'll be fine." I led them down the staircase, wincing as the steps jolted my wound.

"You have a map?" she asked sarcastically as we reached the now disused platform.

"No, I have a memory." I pulled out a heavy-duty torch I'd stolen from a car boot. "We were briefed on these disused tunnels once in training."

"Once?" Ros echoed sceptically.

"It was enough," I said. I'll give Ros her due. She made no further protest, just nodded acceptance and lifted my sweater to examine the bullet wound.

"How bad is it?"

"They missed all the important bits. I'll live." I eased myself down onto the rails and helped Connie.

She snorted. "Don't be so sure." With a snapped, "That one's live," she jumped easily down from the platform, seized the older woman's collar in a move of which the FSB would have approved, and without hesitation, marched her into the tunnel.

Both of us knew we probably only had a small window of time before the FSB caught up with us, so Ros, with scant regard for her age, forced Connie on as fast as she could move. She had made no further comment about my claustrophobia problem, and followed without hesitation every direction I gave her. I was beginning to feel a tiny glow of pride at her trust in me when a vintage Tube train loomed out of the darkness, blocking our way. Ros looked up at me with a sardonic expression wrinkling her face.

"Whose idea was this?"

_A sense of humour is needed armour. _"I forget," I retorted. Ros grunted, relieved me of my torch and led us through the carriages. We kept Connie sandwiched between us; Ros's distrust of her was total, and she was taking absolutely no chances. When we were clear of the train- impeded by nothing worse than an aggressive vagrant - we stopped to let Connie catch her breath. She flopped onto an abandoned cable spool, panting. I passed her a bottle of water after Ros shook her head impatiently at it.

"What's the time?" she snapped.

I told her as I used a dressing from my stolen First Aid box to stem the slow trickle of blood from my wound. Ros paced restlessly, glaring at Connie. I had never seen Ros so unable to contain her anger. It flared at Connie's every word, and when Connie suggested we should 'go deeper', I thought she might strike her. Instead, she yanked her to her feet.

"Rest's over - " she stopped as a loud, flat report reverberated off the curving walls. "What would you do if you were them?"

I gulped. "Send in a runner." She nodded, and pushed Connie into lurching motion. I checked my gun and ran after them, but the pain in my side was increasing steadily, and I had to stoop to try and lessen it, which slowed me down. At this speed the Russian would be on me within minutes.

Ros had been glancing back anxiously; now I waved her on. If I couldn't speed up, then the FSB had to be slowed down. For a second, as the pale gleam of Ros's hair faded into the shadows, I felt a jolt of claustrophobic panic at being alone, underground, in a metal tube with no visible horizon. I stamped on the feeling and silently blessed the unfortunate driver who – assuming it wasn't pulverised in a nuclear deflagration – was soon going to find his car boot stripped of its contents. A wire booby-trap catapulted our pursuer off his feet. Mindful of his colleagues still in hot pursuit, I forced myself to fire into his writhing body, and limped after Ros and Connie. Ros's eyes narrowed when she saw me gripping my side. I pointed them left.

"Service tunnel - third exit to the right. I'll draw them off to the platform."

She glanced at the blood seeping through the dressing onto my fingers.

"Take care." It was brusque, but for a second I thought I saw moisture in her eyes. Then she turned and ran.

The climb up the escalator took the last of my strength; each step caused a vicious stab of pain, and now I could clearly hear the clatter of footsteps and shouts in Russian echoing below me.

_Just a few more yards._ I staggered to the exit, only to find it barred by a pair of ancient gates. I shook them in enraged frustration, but although they obligingly shed the rust of years all over me, they didn't yield.

I looked back. The first FSB head appeared over the top step like a slightly tousled rising sun. It was followed by a second. I fired at one, but then my gun hammered the final nail into my coffin by jamming.

"Патронов нет у него." _He's out of bullets. _I leaned against the wall for support as the FSB officer advanced on me, gun extended. Blood loss must have been making me lightheaded. Instead of flashing back to the _last_ time I had been captured by an FSB snatch squad, all my imagination could picture was Ros's disgusted expression and the tongue-lashing she'd give me for this.

I thought the ringing sound was in my ears until the Russian answered his mobile. When he lowered it, he looked ironically at me. "It's your lucky day. Change of orders. You come with us."

oOoOoOo

They told me the minimum in the car to London Bridge, while I prayed Ros had got there safely. When we found her opening Connie's locker, I think our relief was mutual, though hers was muted by the flabbergasted expression on her sweating, dirty face when she saw my FSB retinue. When I reassured her they were there to help, she muttered a scathing '_how nice_' under her breath, but Ros being Ros, it didn't take her long to turn the situation to her advantage. I was amazed when Connie proposed that she should disarm the bomb, and expected Ros to spurn the suggestion immediately. Instead, she looked at the other woman with a combination of calculation and curiosity. Then she dispatched half the Russians to Grosvenor Square to retrieve the device and turned to me.

"We'll take it below. Minimise fallout. I'll take _her_. You stay here with the rest of them. Bring it down."

"Ros - " I protested, but she cut me short.

"No. Do as I say." She took Connie's elbow, and left me standing there, staring after her. I tried to make small talk with the other FSB officers, but the circumstances were hardly conducive, and when one spotted my prison tattoos coyly peeping out around the edges of my sweater, renewed suspicion caused the conversation, such as it was, to dry up altogether. For the first time in my life I was relieved to be handed an explosive device.

I carried it down into the tunnels, holding it level and perfectly still, the way my Aunt Josephine had taught me to do when she let her young nephew serve tea to her friends from the Women's Institute. Connie was standing against the wall, sipping from a bottle of gin; Ros, her arms tightly folded and her face set, was pacing to and fro a few yards away, as if she felt she couldn't trust herself if she remained within arms' reach of her.

I sank down against the wall, suddenly exhausted, as she started the disarming process, talking us through every step as if she were back lecturing Service trainees on bomb disposal procedures. She seemed indifferent to the little red figures twinkling menacingly on the countdown in front of her, but Ros never took her eyes from them. Only when Connie told us to leave did she help me to my feet. Then she inclined her head.

"Connie." I wasn't sure if it was a farewell, a condemnation or an expression of admiration. All three, I think. She took my arm in support as we turned.

_Lucas!_ Both of us stopped. _Who do you blame? When you wake at three in the morning with the nightmares, who do you blame for what happened to you?_

I stared at her. I'd never put it into words before. "Harry. I blame Harry."

_Then it's time you stopped. Harry wasn't to blame … it was me. Always me._

Her words shocked me so much that I don't think I _could_ have moved had not Ros grabbed my sweater and pulled it - hard. "Leave - _now!"_ With her half-dragging me, we stumbled down the tunnel and threw ourselves into an alcove behind the remaining half of an old metal door. The force of the explosion caused black dust laced with shards of metal and wood to swirl around us. In the darkness I could hear Ros coughing and spitting. I pulled my sweater up over my head and held it there until the air cleared.

"All right?" I croaked at last. Ros pushed her hair off her face.

"Yeah … fine," she said shakily. I held her for a moment while she muttered apologies and steadied herself. "Come on. You need to get seen to."

We returned above ground, both silently averting our eyes from the shattered remains of the bomb, the table on which it had lain, and, presumably, of Connie James. The FSB team was still loitering near the station entrance. The team leader met my eyes.

"Молодцы," he grunted, and nodded at me.

_Well done. _I nodded back, and they silently turned and left. Ros had been on the phone, quietly calling in the specialist Broken Arrow team to clear up, and check for radiation leakage. Now she looked at me, and something in her expression made a stupid lump tighten my throat.

"You all right?" Ros enquired. She sounded embarrassed even to be asking.

I went to say 'yes', but instead, shook my head. "I – erm - " the words caught. "I need to talk to Harry."

Without a word, she handed me her mobile and discreetly turned her back to give me privacy. I dialled the number. I heard the call connect, but then there was a strange whirring noise and what sounded like some kind of an engine. I frowned.

"Harry?" As I spoke, the phone went dead, and Ros turned to look at me.

"Has anyone made contact with him?" I asked.

She stared at me, and I watched the same chilling fear that was spreading through me cloud her eyes.

"Ros Myers?" She swung round to the man in full HazMat suit looming over her. "Where did it happen?"

I watched Ros gather herself. She held up her hand and rapped to me: "Call Malcolm." Then she began to brief the officer.

"Lucas." I heard Malcolm's voice, tense and anxious, in my ear. "Lucas, are you and Ros all right? Are you safe?"

I reassured him, and asked about Harry. Ros and the Broken Arrow officer seemed to be arguing, but it was like a silent film; all I could hear was what Malcolm was telling me.

"Where is he?" Ros demanded, when I ended the conversation and the officer, red in the face, and obviously on the losing end of the dispute, led his team below. "What did he say?"

As calmly as I could, I told her – that Harry had gone to meet Viktor Sarkisian, the FSB head of station in London. That no-one had been able to contact him since his departure. That he hadn't returned. I watched every drop of colour drain from her face. Her lips quivered, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. Then her expression hardened.

"Rubber Rambo down there," she gestured in the wake of the Broken Arrow team, "says if there was leakage we may have been contaminated. And you need that injury seen to." She coughed and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Straight choice. Hospital or Harry?"

I remembered what she'd once said to me - _That's no choice at all - _and flinched, both at the pain in my side and the irony of the situation; the man whom, _wrongly_, I had held responsible for my ordeal in Russia for so long, now at the mercy of the Russians himself.

"Harry," I said firmly.

"Unanimous." She turned for the exit. "Whatever it takes?"

"Whatever." I stifled a groan as I tried to keep up with her. She looked back, but didn't slacken her pace.

"Taxi!" We climbed in, and Ros said crisply: "Milbank, please," as the driver, with one startled glance at our dishevelled condition, joined the queue at the traffic lights. A helicopter clattered low overhead, heading north as our cab veered south for the river and Thames House.

oOoOoOo

_Thanks for reading! Please review! :)_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to read and review this story. Regular readers will know that I don't like writing endings. I hope this one is not a let-down!**__  
><em>

_CHAPTER TWELVE_

It was three days later that the video emerged. I had been across the river at Vauxhall Cross, trying to get access to some of their Russian sources and obtain any information about the recent movements, or current whereabouts, of Viktor Sarkisian. All our own contacts, inside and outside the Russian embassy, had gone silent, and the handshake protocol, which Malcolm said Harry had used in order to talk to Sarkisian during the crisis, wasn't responding at all. I was never given the warmest of welcomes at Six - memories were long, and rancour ran deep - and I was leaving, empty-handed and intensely frustrated, when my mobile rang.

"Ros," Lucas said without preamble, "we need you back here. Fast."

His voice was tight with urgency, and I walked back as quickly as I could without actually breaking into a run. _Never attract attention in public._ Lucas had only come back on duty that morning. On our return from London Bridge, he had barely got through the doors of Thames House before he passed out on me. One look, and the duty doctor had dispatched him to the nearest hospital, where they'd dealt with his wound – fairly superficial, thank God – and kept him in overnight despite his protests. I'd been relieved to see him back. The sight of Harry's empty office, that syrupy bloody female voice on his phone – '_the subscriber you have called is not available' – _and the anxious, expectant eyes of every officer on the Grid watching me as if they thought I was going to whisk off an Invisibility Cloak and reveal Harry standing next to me, were almost too much for me to bear without the support of his presence.

I found him, Jo, and Malcolm in the conference room. Lucas explained that a video had shown up on the Net.

"We pulled it as soon as we found it," he added, and set it to 'play'.

For an awful second I thought I was going to faint myself; my ears were buzzing and I felt myself becoming clammy with sweat. I swallowed hard to contain the nausea, and somehow managed to keep my composure. I noticed that Lucas was running his hand compulsively around the back of his neck as he watched the screen; he looked grey.

Like him, I recognised the armbands on the men in the film – members of a happy little band of Islamic nutcases known as SARV – and assumed that Sarkisian had traded Harry on to them. In the increasingly commercial world of international hostage-taking, he'd be a valuable prize. The question, of course, was whether the execution the video showed was real, or a sophisticated fake. I hated even discussing the question, but there was no way round it; what we did would depend on the answer. The trouble was, I couldn't bring myself to say even that it _might_ be real, out loud. Quite apart from the fact that I knew that doing so would probably cause morale to plummet, I had a superstitious dread myself that voicing such a statement would turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I argued against it. In the end, it was Malcolm who did the dirty work for me. He shook his head, like Eeyore faced with a day of rainy weather.

_You're just talking yourselves into optimism._

The worst of it was that he wasn't wrong. I think it was knowing that, on top of the sheer, terrifying horror of that video, which made me turn on him.

"Well, what do you suggest, Malcolm? Should we start discussing a poem for his memorial service?" His response was the last thing I expected.

"Don't you _dare_ patronise me!" He looked at me with utter disgust – a look I hadn't seen since the day I walked onto the Grid, tainted by my father's complicity in the death of his closest friend. Beside me, I felt Jo shrink in her seat, and Lucas glanced sharply at me. I wanted to scream at them, to give vent to the feelings that had been choking me ever since Harry's disappearance. _Don't you understand? I can't do this alone – not without him! _It took everything I had, but I forced the rising shriek down again.

"Sorry, Malcolm. I was rude, and my comment was uncalled for." I was grateful when Lucas stepped into the edgy silence and wrapped things up. When he headed for a quiet corner of the Grid, I followed him. He rubbed his hand gently between my shoulder blades. _Thank God. Someone understands._

"All right now?" he asked gruffly.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's just … seeing Harry like that." I shuddered. "Even if it's fake …"

"I know." He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a second. It was only momentary, but it was a forceful reminder that Harry meant just as much to him as he did to me. I had done my utmost to keep my relations with Harry strictly professional over the years, but I'd failed, I knew. He had offered the support, stability, and affection that the breach with my father had denied me, and like a needy child, I'd grabbed them with both hands. In Lucas's case it was his pride and approval that mattered, the paternal sanction that guided his every bloody move. Neither of us would admit it, but without him, both of us were lost.

_And if you stand here feeling bloody sorry for yourself, Myers, so will he be. _I was about to say as much when a clerk arrived with the Service file on Abdul Hussein, a radical from the Watchlist whom we suspected of having links with SARV. I was just flicking through it when Lucas's phone rang. He turned to me, his eyes gleaming.

"They've found Sarkisian's body."

_At last! _Something we could work on. I ordered him to go and identify it, and went straight to the Home Office to get clearance from Nicholas Blake to question Abdul Hussein.

To my exasperation, and despite his obvious sympathy, he refused – too politically sensitive. He was backed up by a Stephen Hillier from Six, who had been remarkably absent during my visit there. Once we'd left the office, though, he told me, in the oblique, unattributable manner that I'd got used to in a decade of working there, that he thought I could, and _should_, go ahead anyway. I went back to the Grid resolved to follow his advice, remembering how Harry had taken on Arkady Kachimov in defiance of just such a ban after Adam's death. When I told Lucas of my decision he smiled grimly in approval.

"Have you thought of pumping Kachimov? He must know most of what Sarkisian knew – probably more." When I didn't answer, he frowned. "Ros? He's ours now, after all."

_Trapped._ Because of Lucas's ambivalent attitude to Kachimov – hatred mixed with the Stockholm-syndrome style affection – Harry and I had decided he shouldn't know that the Russian had died, and _certainly_ not how. But my hesitation had already suggested there was something he didn't know. I couldn't risk undermining his commitment to searching for Harry, so I settled for a half-truth.

"Kachimov's dead, Lucas. We can't ask him anything." I saw shock on his face, and swept on quickly before it had time to take a hold. "Get Hussein's psychological reports sent over. Malcolm," as the tech specialist arrived at my side, "what is it?"

_It_ turned out to be a word in an unexpected language on the video. It suggested that the terrorists might not be who they claimed to be, and it offered a tiny glimmer of hope. Which we needed, especially when a thorough _and_ time-consuming perusal of Hussein's records proved conclusively that he wasn't a member of SARV and never had been. He _had_, however, claimed Stephen Hillier had been present when he was tortured at Guantanamo. I was livid with Hillier for using me to wage a personal bloody vendetta and endangering Harry even further in the process, and for a moment felt overwhelmed with despair that our only lead had taken us straight into a dead end. _Now where?_

Malcolm provided the answer. He was still angry with me, and had been directing anything he had to say to me through Lucas, but I wouldn't have cared this time if he'd had it conveyed from the tech suite by carrier pigeon. Lucas had told me earlier that Malcolm thought he had identified a house in the Russian Oligarch Belt in Surrey (colloquially known in MI-5 as the Robber Belt) to which Harry could have been taken. I had asked him to send a team to check it out, but hadn't dared let myself hope that it would lead to anything. Now Malcolm reported their findings with a quiet air of triumph: evidence of several people having died there and traces of blood, DNA analysis of which had identified one of them as Viktor Sarkisian. None of them corresponded to Harry.

"They used the Russian's blood to simulate the pool at Harry's head," he concluded.

Lucas looked up at me. He didn't speak, but the expression on his face said it all. Finally, I allowed myself a smile of relief as Jo put it into words.

"Harry's alive."

oOoOoOo

Lucas and I were splitting the night hours on the Grid; with the approval of Nicholas Blake, I had decreed that normal working hours would be abandoned until Harry was found. So I was on duty when Malcolm – who seemed to have moved there permanently - came out of the tech suite at just after six a.m. He looked as if he'd been sharing his accommodation with the Grim Reaper in person, and my stomach lurched.

"What is it, Malcolm?"

"I've just received a Code 10," he answered. He sounded as if he didn't believe his own words. "From Ruth."

I thought sleeplessness was affecting my hearing. "_Ruth_?"

He nodded. "She's in trouble. She needs our help."

I almost pointed out that a) this wasn't the Milbank Citizens Advice Bureau, and b) we had enough sodding trouble of our own to be going on with. Thank God I stopped myself in time. Malcolm would never have forgiven me a second patronising comment, and he and Ruth had always been good friends. More important than the social niceties, however, were the warning signals going off in my mind. This _couldn't _be coincidence. Ruth Evershed had gone into exile what … three years ago? Why suddenly re-emerge now? Somehow, she had to be connected to Harry's disappearance.

I dispatched Malcolm to bring her in, and summoned Lucas back to the Grid. I was in Harry's office, studying both Harry and Ruth's Service files, when I saw Malcolm guiding her in through the pods. He headed for the kitchen, and I watched Lucas approach her. I should have gone myself; I was in charge. But whatever demons had driven this sudden Lord-Lucan-in-Reverse-job on Ruth's part, it had raised a few for me, too. I still believed I'd done my duty in reporting her all those years ago. I'd told Adam the same – and it was partly true. But I was trained to recognise lies, _especially_ my own, and I knew that resentment of Harry, anger at Ruth's comments about my father and sheer, vengeful spite had played their part, too. I'd come to terms with the knowledge, but I hadn't expected to be sharing the stage with the other leading lady in that little drama again.

"Ruth." I searched my brain for something else to say. 'Welcome back' sounded completely wrong, and 'good to see you' wouldn't have been true. I settled for 'I'm sorry about all this'. Malcolm had reported that she had escaped from unwelcome visitors to her home in Cyprus with a husband and young son, but they weren't my concern right now. I sat down. Ruth watched me.

"I'm told you're Section Chief now." It was a simple statement of fact, but I wondered if I had been the only one to hear a note of censure in it.

"Yes." I glanced at Lucas. My reading of her file and Harry's had revealed nothing helpful, but I remained convinced that _something_ which linked the two of them, perhaps something he had told her and no-one else, had brought 'visitors' – dusky-skinned Oriental-looking visitors, apparently - to her doorstep. Whatever my personal discomfort, we had to find out whether she knew what, if anything, that might be. So I asked her.

Her revelations about Harry's thwarting of a plot to plant weapons-grade uranium on the unsuspecting Iraqis, and his confiding in her where he had subsequently hidden it, gave us the _reason_ behind Harry's abduction. Within a few minutes she had added the 'who' to the 'why': Libby McCall, now outgoing CIA station chief in London, a former member of the Indian Intelligence Bureau, and an MI-6 officer codenamed 'Ronnie'. _Stephen bloody Hillier. _I stood up.

"Ruth, Jo will take you back to your family. You'll be safe. I'm sorry I can't do more for you all now, but we have to deal with this immediately."

She gave a thin smile. "The job comes first. Of course. Spoken like a true Section Chief, Ros."

I saw Jo look away quickly, but I pretended I hadn't heard, and went back to the Home Office, determined to find out what Nicholas Blake must have known about the Iraq business. As it turned out, very little other than the name of the IIB renegade, Amish Mani. At least now our target had a name. It was progress, not enough, but a step forward. The last thing I needed was to then find that we'd also taken a giant step _back,_ and that Ruth and her family had been kidnapped from their safe house. I knew Hillier had to be involved; only someone on the inside of the security service could have found out where she was.

Lucas and I sped off in different directions; he to charm McCall's replacement, Sarah Caulfield, whose acquaintance he had made over Viktor Sarkisian's corpse, into placing a tracker on her predecessor, and I to arrange another heart-to-heart with that miserable little turncoat, Hillier. He, as I muttered savagely to Lucas on the way out of Thames House, was in this up to his neck, and if he wanted to save it, he'd tell me every last bloody detail.

I met Hillier in the heart of Canary Wharf. _How very appropriate. _He fitted right in here – sleek, flashy, and smug. So did his car, far too upmarket for a field officer's salary. I wondered just who else the bastard had been freelancing for.

"Bit mid-life crisis around here, isn't it?" I enquired, when I joined him.

_Enjoy it_, _you moron, _I thought, as he sneered in response. _You'll be laughing on the other side of your face soon enough._

"It probably appeals more to the _younger _woman." I nodded in the abashed way I knew he expected, then slipped my gun from my jacket and aimed it straight at his genitals.

_This is about the uranium. I know that, you know that. Talk._

The gun barrel seemed to concentrate his mind. He told me quickly enough that Harry had deceived the others by hiding the uranium, and admitted that Ruth and her family had been spirited to an MI-6 safehouse. A quick jab in the groin and the flicking off of the safety catch, and he started to spill the beans about Harry, too.

The crack of a rifle shot stopped him from finishing. I cleaned up in a nearby public toilet. Considering how few brains Stephen Hillier seemed to have possessed, they'd left a hell of a mess on my clothes. But it was a small price to pay; he'd confirmed that that bloody cowboy Libby McCall was the master puppeteer here. The Kerala dialect that Malcolm had detected on the video tied in neatly with Amish Mani, who must be holding Harry. McCall could lead us to their bolt-hole. I used some council toilet paper with all the absorptive power of a lump of granite to wipe the last few drips of blood from my hair, and set off back to the Grid.

oOoOoOo

When I discovered that Lucas had offered Sarah Caulfield both the uranium _and_ Amish Mani in return for placing a tracker on her superior officer, he very nearly got the full benefit of the rage a bullet had prevented me taking out on Stephen Hillier. I'd just about reached my limit in how far I could go in watching my tongue. Malcolm had ambushed me the instant I'd come in, arguing that since he'd identified the safe-house where Hillier had stashed Ruth's husband and son, we should stage a commando-style rescue. He must have been watching too many episodes of '24' at weekends. I said no; that would be tantamount to signing death warrants for both Harry _and_ Ruth. _Still_ he persisted. Finally I ordered him to put the place under surveillance, told him to get some rest and walked off. Now I had Lucas offering the CIA a stash of uranium, boxed and gift-wrapped. Even Jo looked shocked.

"Harry'll countermand the deal, you know that," she protested.

A smirk – there was no other way of describing it – crossed Lucas's face.

"Yeah, that's the flaw in my plan, but luckily we only cross that bridge once Harry's safe."

_You two-faced, lying so-and-so._ I met his twinkling eyes. "Double-crossing the CIA liaison officer on almost her first day? I like your style, Lucas."

He smiled the smile of a naughty little boy who'd been expecting a spanking and got a sweet instead. "Think that deserves a coffee. You?"

"Yeah, thanks - " I was interrupted by a bleep from the computer. Caulfield had succeeded in putting a tracker on Libby McCall. Lucas shot a triumphant look at me. Both of us could sense we might just be moving into the finishing straight, so we weren't particularly sympathetic when Malcolm popped up again. The surveillance on the MI-6 safe house seemed to indicate that only the child was there. _Why is he alone? What's happened to Ruth's husband?_ I heard Lucas snap at him to just keep monitoring the place, and was grateful. My nerves were far too stretched for tolerance, and if I'd replied, it would almost certainly have been with a comment that triggered another spat. At the moment, Ruth's family was an unnecessary and troublesome piece of excess baggage. So I kept my eyes on the computer screen as the blue dot of McCall's tracker began to blink and edge slowly across it.

"I'm joining the Alpha intercept team." Lucas snatched up his jacket. I told Jo to co-ordinate the teams and stay in contact, then hurried after him. For the first few minutes we drove in a tense silence, until Lucas asked hesitantly: "What _was_ Ruth Evershed to Harry, Ros?"

"Officially? Senior analyst. Unofficially – God knows. Anything from Juliet to Jane Eyre." I listened to Jo's voice in my earpiece. "Left here, second right."

Obediently, he span the wheel. "There's history between the two of you, isn't there?"

I felt my face burning, and looked out of the window. "Yes. And that's all it is. History. He's slowing. Head for the disused warehouse … there. Turn!"

He responded so quickly that I was flung painfully against the door handle as we swerved across the path of a polished black Mercedes. I jumped to the ground as Libby McCall emerged.

"Where are they?" I demanded.

He looked down at me with a cynically amused expression. "Well, now, little lady, why exactly should I tell you that?"

A screech of tyres announced the arrival of reinforcements. I glanced over my shoulder. As I did so, I glimpsed a flash in one of the warehouse windows, and saw Libby McCall slump to the ground.

"Second floor!" I shouted as Lucas raced towards the building. I checked that McCall was only winged, handed him over to the intercept team, and hared in pursuit.

I heard the two shots as I tore up the last flight of stairs. Lucas had his gun trained on an Asian standing near Harry with his hands raised. Two bodies were sprawled on the floor. Cordite hung heavy on the air, but the only sound came from Ruth's keening wails.

I turned as two more officers arrived at a run.

"Take him downstairs." I pointed at the Indian. "And the bodies. Call an ambulance." As they began to obey, and Lucas went to release Harry, I squatted next to Ruth.

"Ruth. It's all right. It's over." There was a knife lying on the floor near her feet. I picked it up, and she cringed. "It's OK. Let me get these off." I sliced through the plastic bonds around her wrists, but when I tried to help her up, she pushed me away. "Take it easy." I tried again. "I understand."

"_You? _" There was a whole incredulous speech in that one, sobbing word. I backed off and looked around for help.

"Here." It was Lucas. He jerked his head towards Harry and smiled encouragingly. "Try the boss."

Harry looked old and tired, and I had to admit he didn't smell too good, either, but he managed a smile. "This 'Ros to the Rescue' business is becoming a habit."

I just succeeded in smiling back; tears of sheer relief were almost choking me. "I'd be happy to go cold turkey, Harry."

"Not while I live and breathe." He held the back of the chair for support, but when I went to help him, he shook his head. "Take care of Ruth." We both watched as Lucas helped her gently to the stairs. "They shot her husband." I stared at him in shock, icy cold spreading through me. I barely heard his next words. "Is her son safe? Ros. Is the boy safe?"

_Why is he alone? _ My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and rang Malcolm's number. It was Jo who answered.

"Jo? Jo, where's Malcolm?"

oOoOoOo

"Over there." Lucas, who had organised Malcolm's retirement party, gestured with his wine glass. He smiled at me. "Hero of the hour."

With an effort, I smiled back. When my shock at the way Malcolm had put his own life on the line dissipated, I had been full of admiration for him, not to mention intense gratitude. Had he not expressly ignored my orders, little Nico might now be dead along with his father. Malcolm had insisted he didn't want a party, but led by Lucas, we'd all gone ahead with one anyway. Jo, whom I had made responsible for taking care of Ruth, had even managed to persuade her to attend, and for Malcolm's sake she was – albeit without enthusiasm – keeping up appearances by talking to Harry, something that she had point-blank refused to do in the week since their release. I could see Harry now in conversation with a solemn-looking man of about my age, who, according to Lucas, was Tom Quinn, Adam's predecessor as Section Chief. He must have been more humorous than he looked, because at that moment Harry threw his head back and laughed at something he'd said.

"At least he looks a bit more cheerful," I murmured to Lucas.

"Yeah." Lucas's own grin, which had been almost permanently fixed on his face since Harry's return, widened. "He'll be fine, Ros."

I wasn't so sure. Lucas needed to believe that. I _wanted_ to believe it, but I was sceptical. I knew how deep Ruth's anger with Harry ran, and how painful that anger was for him. Ruth's reaction was understandable, of _course_ it was, even to an officially proclaimed Emotional Zombie like me. Still, I knew that despite Harry's apparent smooth recovery from his ordeal, it wouldn't be complete until relations between them were back on an even keel.

"Ros?" Lucas offered me the last slice of chocolate cake. I raised an eyebrow.

"Sure you can spare it?"

He laughed. "I'll probably waste away before your very eyes. Just call me Saint Lucas."

He moved away, and I watched Malcolm, who was now chatting to Tom Quinn. Harry wandered over to me.

"Good turn-out," he observed.

I smiled. "He deserves it, all the years he's given." Even as I spoke I remembered the people who _couldn't_ be there_. _Behind us, Jo was giggling with Lucas about something. I saw Harry's gaze wander to Ruth, who had joined Tom and Malcolm. "She'll come round, Harry. Once she's able to think about it, she'll realise you couldn't have done anything else. It's just the job. Impossible choices. We all have to make them."

He nodded, and gave me a brief hug with one arm. "You know that better than anyone, Rosalind. You've always made the right ones in the end." He looked across the room. "Time for the toast, I think."

It was after the toast, when I had slid, without even noticing it, into my usual 'party' mode of being a lone observer on the fringes of proceedings, that I realised I hadn't seen Malcolm for a while. I asked Lucas, who was cheerfully co-opting a few junior officers into beginning the clear-up, where he was. He gave me an odd look.

"He sneaked off on the QT a few minutes ago, Ros. You know Malcolm, discretion rules. Didn't you say goodbye?"

I glanced around the room. Suddenly there was hardly a familiar face in sight. I'd lost Connie _and_ Ben from my team in the past fortnight. Now Malcolm. We'd clashed more in the last few days than in the last several years. I couldn't just let him go.

I ran down the stairs, the sound of my heels reverberating off the marble floors and walls. As I jumped the last three steps I saw a familiar mackintosh in the distance.

"Malcolm!" He turned as I caught up with him.

"Ros." His eyes crinkled. "Did you want to escort me off the premises?"

I swallowed. "No. I just – I - " _What the hell __do_ _you want, Myers, you bloody idiot?_

I blurted it out. "I wish you weren't going." The expression in his eyes changed. "We need you," I added. "Harry does. Surely he wants you to stay?"

Malcolm smiled. "No, Ros. It's time. When I came into the Service Amstrad was the cutting edge of technology. Harry has you at his side. He couldn't be better served."

I shook my head. "I let Ruth's husband die. And without you her son would be dead too. _You_ were the one who took the decision to save him."

He tutted, and took my hands. "Because I _could._ You did what you had to, and Harry and Ruth are alive because of it. Stop beating yourself up. _I'll_ tell you what Harry wants. _You_ – your experience, your bravery, even that razor tongue of yours."

I probably couldn't have said it to anyone else. "He wants Ruth, Malcolm, not me."

"One doesn't exclude the other. You're his friend, Ros." He looked over my shoulder. "And talking of your friends, and need …"

Lucas was heading towards us. I spoke hurriedly.

"I didn't mean it. About Harry's poem." I was too embarrassed to look at him. "But if I ever get blown to kingdom come, will you read one for me, Malcolm?"

"No bomb would dare," he said. "But _if_, God forbid … then yes. God bless, Ros." Before I could say more, he gave me a swift peck on the cheek, turned, and disappeared through the doors.

Lucas cleared his throat. "It's tough losing people," he said quietly. I nodded dumbly. That was the third in less than a month.

"Especially old friends. Makes you feel pretty alone sometimes."

The sudden note of melancholy jerked my head round. I remembered how Malcolm had welcomed him back onto the Grid. With him gone, there were even fewer familiar faces on the Grid for Lucas now than there were for me. We looked at each other for a moment.

"Are you going back upstairs?" I asked at last.

He shook his head. "Night shift's in. Harry's gone. Time to go home."

I swallowed, then plunged in. "I owe you a slice of cake. There's a good patisserie at the City Café."

His face lit up, and he slid his arm through mine. "Who's paying, boss?"

"Tonight? I am." I waited just long enough. "Tomorrow … you will. In one way or the other."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "You're just too generous. What can I say?"

I pushed open the door and gave him my sweetest smile, the one that made even Harry take a step backwards. "Just call me Saint Rosalind," I said, and stepped out into the street.

_THE _oOoOoOo _END_


End file.
